# chapters

path: 1122111111122211221111222121211211212112212121121211121221
author_id: seuzz
title: A Story to Tell
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>While the pie bakes, Kali puts you to work at the table writing that essay on American history. You press yourself over it, for you want to impress her; and you also figure that the more knowledge you show, the less history you'll have to study. But you can't shake the feeling you're making a hash of it. <i>Did the Civil War happen before or after the Mexican War?</i> you have ask yourself at one point. <i>There was a war with Mexico, right? Or was it with Spain? Was there a war with Spain too?</i> <br/>
<br/>
Miko returns while you're still bent over the paper, and grimaces when she sees you. "I haven't seen an expression like that on my face since I was writing essays in middle school."<br/>
<br/>
"That's what I'm doing now."<br/>
<br/>
She groans, and disappears into her bedroom until it's time to eat.<br/>
<br/>
The two women each take only a dollop of the pie; you scoop out rather more, but put most of it back when Miko shrieks that you'll "get fat." You finish the essay, and Kali reads it with a cool and skeptical gaze while Miko peers over her shoulder. "How'd I do?" you nervously ask.<br/>
<br/>
"At least you don't have Abraham Lincoln fighting vampires," Miko snorts.<br/>
<br/>
"Do I <i>look</i> an idiot?"<br/>
<br/>
"You <i>look</i> like someone who wouldn't have the <i>Americans</i> bombing Pearl Harbor."<br/>
<br/>
"Where did I--?" You snatch at the paper.<br/>
<br/>
"Peace, both of you," Kali says, and keeps hold of your essay. She slides another piece of paper toward you. "Now let's see if you can be entrusted with the franchise. Explain the American system of government."<br/>
<br/>
"Franchise?" you ask. "You mean like McDonalds? What's that got to--?"<br/>
<br/>
"Oh for the love of Arbol!" Miko exclaims.<br/>
<br/>
"Are you <i>trying</i> to set her off, child?" Kali asks with narrowed eyes. "Because if I had to describe who you <i>look like,</i> I'd say you <i>look</i> like someone who enjoys giving her colleagues grief."<br/>
<br/>
Miko turns a bright red. You feel your own cheeks flush, and maybe that further embarrasses Miko, for she turns redder and redder.<br/>
<br/>
"As amusing as it would be to see the twin Krakataus erupt in my own kitchen," Kali says, "I would prefer to have only lunch to clean up after. Miko, dear, Will was asking after our personal histories earlier. It helps to orient him, to understand how <i>each</i> of us came to be a part of the Stellae. I told him about myself and about Frank and Joe. Would you like to share your story?"<br/>
<br/>
Miko jerks her eyes between you and Kali, and makes a kind of choking noise through her nose. But she gradually reacquires her composure. "Well, why not," she finally gasps, and throws her hands in the air. "As long as I've got to walk around <i>looking</i> at myself, it might as well be someone who <i>knows</i> something about me."<br/>
<br/>
But instead of speaking further, she stalks from the kitchen.<br/>
<br/>
"I guess I'm supposed to go after her?" you ask when she doesn't come back.<br/>
<br/>
"No, she's leaving it to me," Kali says with a rueful smile. "She wants <i>me</i> to suffer as much as she is likely to."<br/>
<br/>
You give her a puzzled look, but she just rises and starts to clean up the kitchen. "That essay on American governance, child," she says. "It's been called a machine that would go of itself, but it will not <i>write</i> of itself." You grimace and pick up a pencil.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Kali murmurs something about "Schoolhouse Rock" while looking over your effort, and then gestures you back into her office. "I said Miko wished to see myself embarrassed, and I will accommodate her." She takes a box from a shelf, and rifles through it. "If you wish to embarrass me further, I give you permission to read the other compositions in this collection," she says as she draws out a thin notebook, like a school composition book. "Perelandra is my secondary <i>ousiarch</i>, and that is why I am a successful designer." She gestures at her office. "At least in part. I employ myself and amuse myself in creative endeavors. They are rather a compulsion, in fact." She strokes the notebook. "I know the stories of each of our members. I have written them down in dramatic form. Written some of our adventures down in dramatic form as well." A shadow passes over her face, and then she takes a deep breath. <br/>
<br/>
"I fear for their quality." She looks up at the ceiling. "One who walked under the light of Perelandra and Kenadandra was a great composer even as he did our work, for creativity and industry can summon forth great music. A great novelist, though, would be better for having Perelandra and Viritrilbia as <i>ousiarchs,</i> for the latter is the master of words. Alas, I am only a great theorist and not a great writer, though I may flatter myself that I am a competent storyteller."<br/>
<br/>
She sets the composition book down on the desk. "You may read Miko's story, as related by a frustrated scenarist, here." She leaves you alone in the office.</span></div></div>


path: 11221111111222112211112221212112112121122121211212111212211
author_id: imaj
title: Miko's Chronicle, part 1
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>You pick up the notebook, which is filled with page after page of Kali's small but neat handwriting, and start reading:<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">*****<br/>
<br/>
Miko's Chronicle<br/>
by Kaliope Valentine</div><br/>
<br/>
The tide of students swept through the main doors of Daigo Junior High School.  Their exuberance and excitement at the end of the school day distinctly at odds with the severity of their uniforms:  A whooping and laughing tide of thirteen and fourteen year olds.<br/>
<br/>
Miko regarded them with a neutral expression as she adjusted her backpack.  It was laden with class work and the straps were digging into her shoulders.  She grimaced a little as she set out purposefully.  She had more important things to do than play in the late summer sun.<br/>
<br/>
“Miko,” called out a voice from one of the loose clumps of students that had formed outside the door.  Miko resolved to ignore it but the voice called out again.  “Miko, are you trying to ignore me?”<br/>
<br/>
Miko turned round.  “No Yuriko,” replied Miko, recognising the other girl.  “I was just in a rush to get home,” she added pointedly.<br/>
<br/>
Yuriko pouted and nudged one of the other girls beside her.  There were eight of them in all, smiling and giggling, lost in their own conversations.  “Aw Miko,” whined Yuriko.  “Don’t you want to hang out with us for a while.  It’s such a nice day, it would be a shame to waste it stuck indoors doing your homework.”<br/>
<br/>
“It’s not my homework,” sighed Miko.  “My parents are expecting me home.”<br/>
<br/>
“We were going to go to the park,” replied the girl standing next to Yuriko, whose name was Hoshiyo.  Miko didn’t know her so well.  “Some of the boys were going to go there as well,” she added with a smile.<br/>
<br/>
“Well I’m going home,” repeated Miko scowling.<br/>
<br/>
“You are no fun at all sometimes Miko,” said Yuriko, sticking out her tongue and laughing.<br/>
<br/>
Miko’s expression softened.  “I’m sorry Yuriko,” she said.  “You know how it is just now.”<br/>
<br/>
“I sure do,” replied Yuriko breaking into a smile again.  “Hey, if your parents let you out you should come meet up with us.”<br/>
<br/>
“I’ll do that,” replied Miko, forcing a faint smile.  She knew full well that she wouldn’t.  “If not I’ll see you tomorrow.”<br/>
<br/>
The girls waved and exchanged their goodbyes, leaving Miko to adjust her bag again and walk out the gate.  The narrow street outside was surrounded by houses and Miko set off slowly up the hill towards her home.  The students were scattering in all directions, walking off at their own paces.  Miko was left to move at her own speed, not caring that she was walking all by herself.<br/>
<br/>
Miko’s home was only a short distance from the school.  It did not take her long to reach it.  Once inside the porch, she kicked her shoes off and put on her slippers.<br/>
<br/>
“Mother,” called out Miko, walking further inside.  “Mother, I’m home.”<br/>
<br/>
“In here darling,” came a shout from deep within.<br/>
<br/>
Miko followed the voice to its source, the kitchen.  Her mother stood at the cooker, dressed only in a simple silk robe.  The robe hung loosely on her slender frame, distended only by her heavily swollen belly.  Miko watched as her mother stirred the pot.  It smelled delicious.<br/>
<br/>
“How long now,” asked Miko, moving in beside her mother.  She sniffed at the contents of the pot experimentally.<br/>
<br/>
Her mother laughed.  “Still a few hours till we eat dear,” she replied, petting Miko’s hair with a free hand.<br/>
<br/>
“I meant the baby,” replied Miko.  She looked up at her mother.  There was a timelessness about her mother’s face, making it impossible to judge her age.  As far as Miko was concerned, her mother was still the most beautiful woman in the world.<br/>
<br/>
Miko’s mother smiled again, a warm and friendly smiled.  “I am eight months pregnant now Miko,” she explained.  “It will only be a few weeks now.  Your father insists that it will be a boy,” she added, cradling her stomach with her free hand.  “He hopes desperately for someone to carry on his line.”<br/>
<br/>
“I can carry on his line,” interrupted Miko angrily.  “I’ve been training for it too.”<br/>
<br/>
Miko’s mother gently stroked Miko’s hair again.  “And you’ve done very well,” she replied.  “Your father often speaks about your skill to me, but you know how he is:  Very traditional.  His wants a son to be his heir, just as he was his father’s heir, and his father was his father’s father’s before him.”<br/>
<br/>
“Girls are just as good as boys,” shouted Miko angrily, stamping her foot.<br/>
<br/>
“I know darling,” replied her mother.  “He is very proud of you, he just can’t say it that’s all.”  She paused for a second to think before reaching up and pulling out the comb that held her hair in place.  Her hair cascaded down around Miko’s mother’s shoulders like a waterfall.  “Take this,” she said, offering Miko the comb.  “For safekeeping,” she added with a smile.  “I know I can trust you with it.”<br/>
<br/>
Miko looked at the comb as she took it from her mother’s hands.  It was a plain thing, crafted from wood and chipped with age.  A few stray hairs were still clinging onto the comb.  Miko’s mother closed Miko’s fingers around it.  “Put it somewhere safe for me Miko.”<br/>
<br/>
“Yes mother,” smiled Miko.  She carefully put the comb in one of the side pockets of her backpack.  “Do you want help with dinner?”<br/>
<br/>
Miko’s mother smiled again, this time with a little tiredness.  “No, I can manage here thank you dear.  Why don’t you go speak with your father.”<br/>
<br/>
“Where is he,” asked Miko.<br/>
<br/>
“Downstairs of course,” replied her mother, ruffling her hair.  Miko scowled a little and fixed her hair back in place with her hands.<br/>
<br/>
The poky little basement of the house was cool when Miko climbed down the stairs into it.  The little windows set high in the walls were dirty and very little sunlight penetrated inside.  Miko found the cord at the bottom of the stairs and pulled it to turn on the light.  An elderly, unshaded light bulb buzzed on, adding its own weak illumination to the room.  Tools and paint cans and other odds and ends lined the simple shelves set into the basement walls.  There was no sign of her father, but Miko hadn’t expected there to be.<br/>
<br/>
Miko moved one of he paint cans to the side, revealing a small brass representation of the sun set on the wall.  There was a rumbling sound behind her and Miko turned round to watch as several stones in the centre of the basement started to sink.  They formed a staircase leading further down.<br/>
<br/>
Miko clambered down the steps, which were twice as deep as a normal staircase.  There was another brass sun set into the wall at the bottom, matching the one above.  She gave it a twist and behind her the staircase slowly moved back up into position.  Miko then followed the gently sloping corridor that down towards the bright glow of her fathers training room.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">*****</div><br/>
<br/>
You put the notebook to one side for a second and rub your eyes.  The richness of lunch and all that work on those essays have left you feeling more than a little drowsy.  It's tempting just to stop for a few moments and rest your eyes<br/>
</span></div></div>


path: 112211111112221122111122212121121121211221212112121112122111
author_id: imaj
title: Miko's Chronicle, part 2
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>As she stepped out onto the polished wooden floor of the long training hall, Miko kept her head slightly bowed.  A figure stood in the centre of the room, dressed in a heavy dark blue robe and armor.  A mask covered his face.  Miko glanced upwards at him, her attention rapt at the movement he was making.<br/>
<br/>
He would move fluidly, his leading foot striking the floor resoundingly as brought his practice sword round in graceful, impossibly swift, arcs.  Then, just as each movement ended, his stance would go from liquid to unbreakably solid steel:  His arms like a rock, his practice sword unmoving.  With each practice strike he would shout.  It wasn’t anything intelligible, just a raw release of energy.  The force of it gently buffeted Miko.  She couldn’t help but gasp in admiration.<br/>
<br/>
The figure relaxed, his bamboo practice sword falling to his side.  With one hand he pulled of his mask, revealing his face.  Short, closely clipped hair that was turning to a steely grey framed a stern face.  He looked at Miko and raised an eyebrow.<br/>
<br/>
“Father,” said Miko curtly, still looking at the floor.<br/>
<br/>
“Raise your head Miko and look at me,” replied her father, rubbing at his beard, it was a closely clipped as the rest of his hair, if a little whiter.  “How were your lessons today?”<br/>
<br/>
“Good,” replied Miko.  “We are learning about the Warring State Period in history.”<br/>
<br/>
“Good, good,” replied her father somewhat distractedly.  “You are showing your teachers the proper respect?”<br/>
<br/>
“Of course father,” replied Miko a little irritably.<br/>
<br/>
“Excellent,” he boomed.  “Your mother probably needs help in the kitchen.”  Miko’s father didn’t wait for a response.  He slipped his mask back on and resumed practicing his strikes.<br/>
<br/>
Miko stood for a few seconds, looking around the training hall.  She had entered by one of the long sides of the hall, where equipment hung on racks.  The opposite wall had always fascinated her, covered as it was with ornate paintings of the divines.  At the center was a representation of Amaterasu, goddess of the sun.  It was the largest of the paintings, as befitting for divinity most venerated by her family.<br/>
<br/>
The portrait of Amaterasu was flanked on either side by pictures of the goddess’ parents, Izanami and Izanagi.  Miko still recalled the day that her father had told her, his voice heavy with sadness, that she had a special link with Izanagi.  She still wasn’t quite sure why that would be a bad thing, to have a god looking out for her.<br/>
<br/>
There were six other paintings.  Hachiman, god of warriors, to whom both Miko and her father looked whilst training.  Pictures of Tenjin, Inari, Ninigi and Susanoo lined the wall.  At one end of the line was Tsukuyomi – the god of the moon had once offended Amaterasu and his picture was kept as far from hers as possible.  The last picture, at the opposite end of the line, wasn’t a divinity at all, but rather a representation of the first emperor of Japan, Jimmu.<br/>
<br/>
Miko became aware that the rhythm of her fathers practice, the thud of his foot striking the floor and the sound of him shouting, had stopped again.  She looked away from the paintings on the far wall.<br/>
<br/>
“Why are you still here Miko,” asked her father sternly.  He stood unmoving, locked in a strike stance.  “I told you to help your mother.”<br/>
<br/>
“I already asked mother if she needed help,” replied Miko, keeping her anger in check.  “She told me to come here.”  Miko paused for a few seconds.  “I was hoping we could train,” she asked uncertainly.<br/>
<br/>
Her fathers stance relaxed again.  “Very well,” he said, still not removing his mask.  “Fetch a practice sword and come over.”<br/>
<br/>
“Will I put on some armor,” asked Miko.<br/>
<br/>
“No,” replied her father.  “You will attempt some strikes and I shall make simple responses.  I will not strike back.”<br/>
<br/>
Miko set her bag carefully on the floor and looked at the equipment racks which covered the nearest wall.  There was far more than would ever be needed, armor for all sizes starting with young children.  The practice swords were held in a rack attached to the wall, slats of bamboo held together by leather.  Eight of them were held there.  Miko selected one at random, quickly getting a feel for the weight of it in her hands and stepped forward in front of her father.<br/>
<br/>
Miko’s father raised his practice sword into a defensive stance.  “You may strike when you are ready,” he said calmly.  “I will…”<br/>
<br/>
Miko’s practice sword was already moving.  She raised it above her shoulder and then brought it down with as much power she could in a slashing motion that aimed at her fathers head.  With amazing speed, her father brought up his own practice sword, blocking Miko’s blow and knocking her practice sword away to the right.  The motion caught Miko unaware and the practice sword skittered out of her grasp and bounced on the floor.<br/>
<br/>
“Good,” said her father as Miko retrieved the sword.  “You are learning speed, but your incaution has left you exposed.  Try again.”<br/>
<br/>
Miko held her practice sword, it wavered slightly in the air as she examined her father’s stance looking for an opening.  This time she tried a darting strike at his wrists, sacrificing power to move faster.  Her father had less time to react this time but still managed to get his own practice sword in the way.  His block was weaker and Miko was able to regain her poise almost instantly.  She pushed for another attack at the wrists, but her father somehow moved to the side and she missed.<br/>
<br/>
“Better,” said Miko’s father.  “One more try.”<br/>
<br/>
Miko tried a strike from below, first dropping her practice sword and then bringing it back up in an unconventional wide arcing strike aimed at her fathers ribcage.  Her father twisted his wrist and brought his own practice sword in a backwards sweeping upwards arc.  The two swords met and slid against each other.  Miko pushed hard but was unable to move her practice sword any further forward.<br/>
<br/>
“Enough,” said Miko’s father.  Miko withdrew her practice sword and let it fall to her side.  She watched as her father threw his practice sword aside.  “Let’s make this easier for you.  Try striking while I am unarmed.”<br/>
<br/>
Miko turned nervously towards her father’s discarded practice sword and then back to her father  “I don’t want to,” she said quietly.<br/>
<br/>
“Why,” asked her father.  “You should put feelings of sentimentality to the side when fighting Miko.”<br/>
<br/>
“It’s not that,” explained Miko.  “I think that if I strike at you now, you’re just going to do something that ends up with me falling on the floor.”<br/>
<br/>
“So you are showing signs of wisdom,” replied her father.  He might have been smiling behind his mask, it was impossible for Miko to tell.  “However, there may also be wisdom gained in seeing the execution of the trap you expect.  Attack.”<br/>
<br/>
Sullenly, Miko raised her sword again.  She decided to repeat her first attack, going for power.  Miko didn’t doubt that she was going to fail here, but at least she could attempt to make it sting her father a little too.  She was bitterly disappointed when he smartly stepped out of the way of her slow and clumsy blow.  She struck the floor with the practice sword making a loud clunking sound.  It vibrated in her hand, but Miko managed to keep a hold on it, at least until her father moved smartly beside her and grabbed hold of it too.  She struggled briefly, but her father was far the stronger.  His elbow caught her under the ribs and she let go and tumbled to the floor.<br/>
<br/>
“That wasn’t fair,” complained Miko angrily.<br/>
<br/>
“Oh,” replied her father, walking to where the other practice sword lay on the floor.  “How was it not fair?”  He picked up the other practice sword and walked back to the equipment racks<br/>
<br/>
“You’re bigger and stronger than me,” pouted Miko.  She rolled over to look at her father.  He was facing away from her, replacing the practice swords in the rack.<br/>
<br/>
“And,” said her father abruptly.  “I have fought creatures both bigger and stronger than myself many times.  Fair did not come into it.  My advantages were speed and guile, something for you to remember next time.”<br/>
<br/>
“I see father,” replied Miko, pulling herself to her feet.  “I did not think.”<br/>
<br/>
“Then in the future, make sure that you <i>do </i>think,” stated her father firmly, still not turning towards her.  “Now go see if you mother needs help again.”<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">*****</div><br/>
<br/>
To rest your eyes for a moment: "<a href="https://www.Writing.Com/main/interactive-story/item_id/1510047/action/view/chapter_map/112211111112221122111122212121121121211221212112121112122112" target="_top" title="Interactive Story Chapter in Item # 1510047">The Perils of a Paranormal Polyglot</a>" <a href="https://www.Writing.Com/main/interactive-story/item_id/1510047/action/view/chapter_map/112211111112221122111122212121121121211221212112121112122112" target="_blank" title="Open in new window."><img border="0" height="12" loading="lazy" onmouseout="$(this).css('opacity', '.4');" onmouseover="$(this).css('opacity', '1');" src="https://www.Writing.Com/nw.gif" style="opacity:.4;" width="12"/></a><br/>
</span></div></div>


path: 1122111111122211221111222121211211212112212121121211121221111
author_id: imaj
title: Miko's Chronicle, part 3
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>Miko stared distractedly out the window as her history teacher droned on with his lecture.  The classroom sat on the second floor and she could see out and onto the rooftops of the nearby houses.  The sky was grey and miserable looking.  It looked like it was going to rain soon, probably when she had to walk home Miko thought.<br/>
<br/>
In truth Miko had trouble concentrating all day.  She felt as if she had disappointed her father in his training hall the previous day.  It had left a sour taste in her mouth that hadn’t faded since.  Miko sighed as the first drops of rain pattered against the windows.  Maybe she could try again when she got home<br/>
<br/>
“If I can have your attention, Miss Toyotomi,” said her teacher, Mr Watanabe, instantly snapping Miko’s attention back to the class.  She blushed furiously at the embarrassment.   “This should be very interesting for you,” he added taping the blackboard with a wooden pointer.  “We are talking about <i>your </i>clan Miko.”<br/>
<br/>
The rest of the class tittered dutifully, doing nothing to ease Miko’s already red face.<br/>
<br/>
“Or what happened to them, at least,” added the teacher.  He continued his lecture in the manner of one used to giving them.  “The Siege of Osaka continued on into 1615, with the so-called summer campaign.  A series of battles culminated in the sacking of Osaka castle.  Hideyori Toyotomi was forced to take his own life, ending both his rebellion against the Tokugawa Shogunate and the Toyotomi Clan.”<br/>
<br/>
A hand shot up near the front of the class.  “Didn’t Hideyori have any children,” asked an eager boy.<br/>
<br/>
“Yes he did Hisao,” begun Mr Watanabe before being interrupted by the bell.  The Teacher waited patiently for the ringing to subside before continuing.  “But that will have to wait for next week it seems.  You may pack up class.  Remember your homework for Monday.”<br/>
<br/>
Miko stood up as the class started to break up, looking out the window again.  “I told you should have come with us yesterday,” whispered Yuriko in her ear as she passed.  “Summer sun has all gone now.”<br/>
<br/>
Miko sighed again as she hoisted her bag up onto her shoulder before making her way to the front of the class.  Mr Watanabe had sat at his battered old desk and was marking papers.  He looked up was Miko approached.<br/>
<br/>
“I was distracted Sir,” she said, bowing her head slightly.  “It will not happen again.”<br/>
<br/>
The teacher broke into a broad smile.  “You shouldn’t worry too much about it Miko,” he said.  “We all have other things on our mind from time to time.  So long as your are back to your usual exemplary self on Monday I will be happy.”<br/>
<br/>
“I will,” replied Miko, smiling faintly.  <br/>
<br/>
Miko turned to leave but felt something brush against her bag, followed by the sound of something hitting the floor.  She turned back round to see that she had accidently knocked some textbooks off the teachers desk.  Eight textbooks had fallen to the floor in a radial pattern.  For a moment Miko thought they resembled stylised drawing of the sun, light radiating from it in all directions.<br/>
<br/>
“I..  I..” she stammered.<br/>
<br/>
“It looks like it isn’t your day Miko,” sighed Mr Watanabe.  He grinned impishly.  “I’ll tidy up, you should go before you damage my classroom further.”<br/>
<br/>
“Yes sir,” replied Miko, nodding her head deferentially before scuttling out the door.  The conversation with her teacher had delayed her and the stairs down to the exit were already empty of students.  She took the steps two at a time, desperate to flee the building.  She rushed downwards and out, pushing past the double doors out of the school and into the rain.  <br/>
<br/>
A few students still huddled in against the building, hoping that the rain would end.  Most were running or walking quickly away home, although a few hardy types were milling about in the short courtyard between the doors and the gates.  Miko sighed again, at least it was not far to her home.  She quickly checked her bag was closed securely.<br/>
<br/>
A side pocket was open.  Miko looked inside it and found the comb her mother had given her yesterday.  She’d forgotten she had put it there.  Miko closed the pocket, hoisted the bag back on her shoulders and walked briskly out to the gates.<br/>
<br/>
Miko stopped just in time as a compact van bearing the laurel wreath logo of a nearby rice-liquor company hurtled down the road far faster than it should have been going.  The van’s nearside front wheel hit a pothole in the road where the rain had been pooling.  The rainwater splashed into the air soaking Miko.<br/>
<br/>
Miko almost shouted after the van, but it was going far too fast to even notice her.  It turned right at the crossroads at the bottom of the road, its tyres squealing in protest.  She watched it disappear with a sense of resignation.  Shoulders slumped, Miko set off up the hill, increasingly sodden as the rain grew heavier.<br/>
<br/>
The door to the house was open when Miko arrived.  She took a step back and looked around, there was nobody nearby, no sign of her mother outside the house taking the garbage out.  “Mother,” she shouted as she walked inside.  “Mother, where are you?”  Miko slipped off her shoes and went further inside.  She dumped her bag in the living room before checking each room in turn.<br/>
<br/>
Miko came to the kitchen last.  Here at least there was some sign of life:  A couple of pots sat on top of the cooker but there was no heat from the hobs.  Miko walked round behind the counter.  A plate had been dropped on the floor and shattered into eight pieces.  There was a scrap of cloth under one of the pieces.  Miko knelt down to pick it up.  She rubbed the thin scrap between her fingers, recognising it almost instantly:  It was from her mother’s robe and it had been torn roughly from it.<br/>
<br/>
Miko’s heart started to beat faster as a horrible, inconceivable idea started to gnaw away at her.  She dropped the strip of fabric and ran for the basement.  The light was already on and the stairs to the training room open.  Her father <i>never </i>left the stairs open.  She skidded down the stairs, down the corridor and into the training hall.<br/>
<br/>
It was a mess, the equipment had been torn from the racks and scattered about the floor.  Much of it was broken and Miko had to carefully pick her way through the wreckage carefully.  Long, ugly looking bloodstains marked the floor, the swirls showing the path the fighting had taken.<br/>
<br/>
Miko span slowly round, taking it all in.  At least three men had fought here judging by the blood.  The trails went and back and forth.  They had been pushed back by a fourth man, perhaps Miko’s father, yet still they had come on.  Miko traced the fight till it came to a halt.  A single practice sword lay on the floor, broken in two equal sized halves.  The leather bindings had broken and the four slats of bamboo that made up the sword had come loose and scattered.  Miko sank to her knees and wailed.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">*****</div><br/>
<br/>
To rest your eyes for a moment: "<a href="https://www.Writing.Com/main/interactive-story/item_id/1510047/action/view/chapter_map/112211111112221122111122212121121121211221212112121112122112" target="_top" title="Interactive Story Chapter in Item # 1510047">The Perils of a Paranormal Polyglot</a>" <a href="https://www.Writing.Com/main/interactive-story/item_id/1510047/action/view/chapter_map/112211111112221122111122212121121121211221212112121112122112" target="_blank" title="Open in new window."><img border="0" height="12" loading="lazy" onmouseout="$(this).css('opacity', '.4');" onmouseover="$(this).css('opacity', '1');" src="https://www.Writing.Com/nw.gif" style="opacity:.4;" width="12"/></a></span></div></div>


path: 11221111111222112211112221212112112121122121211212111212211111
author_id: imaj
title: Miko's Chronicle, part 4
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>Miko knelt there, quietly sobbing for what seemed like an age.  As her tears finally subsided, a little spark of hope formed within Miko.  Her father had fought with one of the practice swords.  She glanced towards the portrait of Amaterasu, daring to hope.  It was untouched.<br/>
<br/>
Calmly, Miko stood up and walked to the portrait, not wanting to be excited, not wanting to show emotion in case she was mistaken.  She looked at the wooden frame of the picture, running her hands along the bottom.  She shouldn’t have known this, but she had seen her father do it once years ago.  If she pressed here, and then here and finally <i>there </i>then she should be…<br/>
<br/>
There was an audible click.  The wall panel below the painting fell open to reveal a hidden alcove.  Miko stooped down to look inside:  Her father’s sword was still there.<br/>
<br/>
Miko stood straight back up and took a step back.  She looked at the picture of Amaterasu again, looking at the representation of the goddess straight in the eyes.  “I know I shouldn’t take this, ok” she begun.  “But my father is in trouble somewhere.  He’s alive, I know he’s alive because if they’d killed him I’d have found his…  I’d have found him here.”  She bit her lip nervously.  “I’m going to take this sword to my father.  I’m going to res…  I’m going to help him escape and rescue my mother.”  After a moments though she added.  “Please forgive me.”<br/>
<br/>
Miko knelt by the alcove and reverentially removed the sword from its stand.  She removed the blade from its sheaf, gasping a little in admiration.  The blade was a little under a metre in length and curved gently inward.  There was no maker’s mark on it, just the distinctive wave like pattern that ran along the side of the blade.  Miko grasped the hilt with both hand and hefted it experimentally.  She should put it away, sheave it until she could deliver it to her father, Miko thought.<br/>
<br/>
Miko heard a noise from the corridor leading to the training hall.  “Susa,” called a voice from the corridor.  “Susa, are you down here,” shouted the voice; male, heavily accented.<br/>
<br/>
Miko snapped round to face the doorway.  She lifted the sword into a guard stance and tried to calm herself.  Her mother and father were gone, had they come for her too?<br/>
<br/>
A lone figure entered by the doorway opposite.  Miko almost did a double take:  The interloper was a foreigner, a westerner, in a simple charcoal grey suit.  His white shirt was open at the collar.  His face was ruddy, perhaps he has spent too much time in the sun?  That was the sort of thing these foreigners did.  It was in stark contrast to the pure white of his beard.  What shocked Miko the most was simply how small he seemed.  He was certainly smaller than her father, how could someone like that have defeated him?<br/>
<br/>
“What have you done with my parents,” asked Miko coldly.<br/>
<br/>
The man mutter some unintelligible.  “I haven’t done anything with your parents girl,” he said slowly and carefully.  “You must be Miko, I’m…”<br/>
<br/>
“I will ask you one more time,” interrupted Miko.  “What have you done with my father,” she shouted.  The words reverberated against the walls of the training hall.  The scattered detritus on the floor rolled about and old man staggered backward.<br/>
<br/>
Miko couldn’t read the expression on the mans face, shock or something like it?  He said something to himself again in a language that Miko did understand.  “Look girl, I know you’re hurting right now but…” he added.<br/>
<br/>
Miko stopped listening.  She raised her father’s sword above her head and charged the man, channelling her rage, her anger and her fear.  She roared as she swept the sword downwards in a mighty blow that should by all rights have cleaved the interloper in two.<br/>
<br/>
She missed, the old man had moved out of the way somehow.<br/>
<br/>
The sword bit deeply into the wooden floor.  Miko tugged at it a couple of times until it came free.  She twisted round, searching for the man.  He had somehow managed to move several paces clear of her.  “You move fast for a fat man,” she panted.<br/>
<br/>
“I’ll take that as a compliment, I think,” he replied.  “I’m a friend of your father’s Miko.  My name is Charles…”<br/>
<br/>
“Lies,” interrupted Miko.  She started advancing towards the man, this time more circumspectly.<br/>
<br/>
“I’ve got this letter he sent me,” he continued, reaching inside his suit jacket.  He pulled out a folded piece of paper and held it out.  Miko went for a darting strike to his outstretched wrist, figuring that he had no blade of his own to deflect the blow.<br/>
<br/>
She missed again.  It wasn’t that he dodged, or was fast enough to move out of the way, he simply wasn’t there when the blow arrived.  The piece of paper he had been holding floated to the ground gently.<br/>
<br/>
“Stars, you’re fast girl,” he said, breathing heavily.  “I just want to talk.”<br/>
<br/>
“Tell.  Me.  Where.  My . Parents.  Are,” shouted Miko, advancing on the old man again.<br/>
<br/>
The old man shook his head and sighed.  “I’ll come back when you’ve calmed down Miko,” he said sadly.  “Why don’t you read the letter, it’ll explain everything.”<br/>
<br/>
As Miko made ready to thrust the sword at the old man, he started glowing.  Dimly to start with, but the glow rapidly intensified.  It quickly became blindly bright, forcing Miko to raise an arm to cover her eyes.  The light kept on getting brighter, to the point where Miko started to think she could see the very bones in her arm silhouetted.<br/>
<br/>
Just as suddenly, the light vanished.  Miko lowered her arm, blinking a couple of times as she did so.  The training hall seemed darker than it was before somehow.  She looked around, the only trace left of the old man was the letter he had dropped.<br/>
<br/>
She picked up the letter and unfolded it.  The careful neat writing on the paper matched her fathers, but the bulk of the letter was written in another language, perhaps English.  There were only a few Japanese characters sprinkled in the text.<br/>
<br/>
Miko let the letter flutter out of her hands, unsure what to do next.  She had been running on a mix of fear and rage since she’d arrived home but now she felt drained and exhausted.  Almost mindlessly, she returned the sword to its scabbard.  Instead of return it to its hiding place she grasped it close, unwilling to let go of what might well be her last link to her father.<br/>
<br/>
Miko made her way listlessly back through the house, closing the stairs in the basement behind, closing the front door that she’d left open during her frantic search of the house.  She returned to the living room, finding her bag where she had left it.  Miko removed her mother’s comb from where she had left it.  With her fathers sword held tightly in her right hand and her mother comb in her left, Miko hugged herself tightly.<br/>
<br/>
She drifted upwards to her bedroom.  She didn’t stop to disrobe, or to drop the sword and comb.  She didn’t even climb under the bedcovers.  Miko just collapsed on top of her bed and quietly sobbed herself to sleep.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">*****</div><br/>
<br/>
To rest your eyes for a moment: "<a href="https://www.Writing.Com/main/interactive-story/item_id/1510047/action/view/chapter_map/112211111112221122111122212121121121211221212112121112122112" target="_top" title="Interactive Story Chapter in Item # 1510047">The Perils of a Paranormal Polyglot</a>" <a href="https://www.Writing.Com/main/interactive-story/item_id/1510047/action/view/chapter_map/112211111112221122111122212121121121211221212112121112122112" target="_blank" title="Open in new window."><img border="0" height="12" loading="lazy" onmouseout="$(this).css('opacity', '.4');" onmouseover="$(this).css('opacity', '1');" src="https://www.Writing.Com/nw.gif" style="opacity:.4;" width="12"/></a></span></div></div>


path: 112211111112221122111122212121121121211221212112121112122111111
author_id: imaj
title: Miko's Chronicle, part 5
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>As Miko drifted into wakefulness, there were a few brief moments of peace, a few moments before the events of the previous day drifted back into memory.  She was dimly aware of something small and hard sticking awkwardly into her stomach.  Drowsily, she scrabbled for it, reaching down and pulling out whatever it was.  As her eyes came into focus, she recognised her mothers comb.<br/>
<br/>
Everything came flooding back and Miko sat up in bed abruptly.  Her free hand reached for where she had left her father’s sword.  She grasped the sword and comb tightly again as the tears threatened to well up again.  Miko choked a little as she fought them back.  She could hardly find her parents if she kept on crying, although she had no idea how she would even start looking for them.  A singe tear rolled down her face, pausing at it reached her jaw.  It hung there, a droplet ready to fall<br/>
<br/>
A cold, harsh light shone through the window.  Miko looked through it to see that it was another overcast and gloomy day.  She sighed.  If only there was somewhere to start, something to point her in the right direction.<br/>
<br/>
The tear dropped from her face.  It splashed on the comb.<br/>
<br/>
Miko sighed and put the comb and sword down on her bed.  She could think of nothing to do except maybe get some breakfast.  As she hauled herself to her feet, she noticed some movement out of the corner of her eye.<br/>
<br/>
The comb had turned by itself, Miko was sure of it.  She picked it up and placed it back on the bed, turning it round a little as she did so.  After a few seconds the comb spun slowly in place, the handle coming round to point the same direction it had before, westwards towards the rest of Kyoto. <br/>
<br/>
Miko gaped at the comb.  Was it something she had said or done?  Perhaps the comb had always been able to do that and her mother, somehow seeing what was to come, had given it to Miko for that very reason.  If she followed the comb, Miko pondered, would it lead her to her mother?<br/>
<br/>
Did she have any other options?<br/>
<br/>
Miko didn’t run, or shout or yell, but instead she spent the next hour calmly preparing to go look for her parents.  She fetched one of her father’s sports bags from the training hall, into which she packed his sword hidden below a couple of old shirts.  After some deliberation, she added the letter the foreigner had left the day before.  Miko then added a little food and some other odds and end she thought might be useful before setting out.<br/>
<br/>
The sun was starting to peek through cracks in the clouds as Miko left her house, the comb held tightly in her left hand.  She opened the hand and balanced the comb on it again.  It swung lazily round to point down the hill towards the city.  Miko shoved the comb into a pocket before setting off at a brisk pace.<br/>
<br/>
The clouds continued to lighten as Miko worked her way westwards.  Every few blocks she would come to a halt and pull out the comb again, heading off in the direction indicated.  There was little change at first, but as Miko got closer to the heart of the Fushimi Ward she found herself zigzagging, changing direction frequently.  At times a passerby would stop to look and puzzle at the odd girl staring so intently at a comb, but Miko ignored them.<br/>
<br/>
A little over an hour into her search, the comb suddenly pointed back the way Miko had come.  For a few moments Miko despaired as she thought it might have stopped working.  It hadn’t, she realised after a few moments of thought, she must have passed wherever it pointed to somewhere since the last junction.<br/>
<br/>
Miko retraced her steps along the street, holding the comb as she did so.  The right hand side of the street was the back wall of some kind of hall.  A laurel wreath symbol had been stencilled onto it at regular intervals.  The left hand side was a row of houses.  The comb drifted leftwards as Miko walked, eventually settling to point towards one house.<br/>
<br/>
With her heart in her mouth, Miko edged close to the house, moving in beside a window to sneak a glimpse inside.  Through the dirty windows  Miko could make out two figures inside, kneeling at a low table.  The first was an old woman, her hair silvery grey and tied up in a tight bun.<br/>
<br/>
The second was Miko’s mother.  Her hair was dishevelled, her head bowed and her robe torn but Miko recognised her instantly.  Miko turned away from the window and leaned against the wall of the house, her heart hammering against her ribs.  She had to do something.<br/>
<br/>
Miko edged round the walls towards the door.  She gave the handle and experimental turn and to her surprise it opened.  Miko slipped inside, and closed the door behind her as quietly as she could.  Still keeping as quiet as possible, she pulled her father’s sword from her bag.  Miko grasped the hilt firmly with both hands and advanced inside the house.<br/>
<br/>
The old woman had vanished from the room by the time Miko entered.  Her mother looked round and stared at Miko quizzically.  Her eyes were hooded, her lips swollen and there was a livid bruise on her cheek.  “Mother,” gasped Miko quietly.<br/>
<br/>
“I…” stuttered her mother, her tone uncertain.  “I… know you?”  The bewilderment on her face was obvious.  “I… was…  I was having tea with Granny.”<br/>
<br/>
Miko lowered the sword a little.  “Granny,” she repeated in confusion.  “I don’t have a grandmother.”<br/>
<br/>
“Of course you do dearie,” came a voice from the far end of the room.  The old women entered carrying a tray.  It was filled with elaborate looking cakes and fripperies.  There was just the faintest smell of the sweetness of them, beguiling and seductive.  “Oh and you’ve brought the sword too,” the old woman grinned, her teeth shining brightly.  “Why don’t you put your toy down and join us.”<br/>
<br/>
The sword suddenly felt very heavy in Miko’s hands.  The tip wavered as she fought to keep it up.  “It’s not a toy,” she said, her resolve wavering.  “It’s not a toy,” she repeated, shouting this time.  The old woman took a step back as if she had been slapped and the weight of the sword lightened for a moment.<br/>
<br/>
“You shouldn’t talk to your dear old Granny like that, hmmm,” murmured the old woman and the weight returned.  “Why don’t you put it down and let me get you a cake.  Come sit down with your mother and me.”<br/>
<br/>
Miko’s mother looked pained for a second.  “I…  Yes…  Sit with me for a while,” she said slowly.<br/>
<br/>
“What have you done to her,” asked Miko quietly.<br/>
<br/>
“Nothing,” replied the old woman.  “Come on, put the sword down and sit with your Granny.  I’ll see it gets returned to its rightful owner.”<br/>
<br/>
Her father’s sword now felt impossibly heavy.  Miko let it sink to the ground, pulling one hand off the hilt with what felt like incredible effort.  At the same time she couldn’t bear to let it go completely:  The knuckles on her other hand whitened as she grasped the sword tight.<br/>
<br/>
Miko’s eyelids drooped and she felt the energy drain out of her.  Her knees felt weak and the room almost started to spin.  She was ready to lay down there and then.  There was a noise behind her and she turned her head lazily to see what it was.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">*****</div><br/>
<br/>
To rest your eyes for a moment: "<a href="https://www.Writing.Com/main/interactive-story/item_id/1510047/action/view/chapter_map/112211111112221122111122212121121121211221212112121112122112" target="_top" title="Interactive Story Chapter in Item # 1510047">The Perils of a Paranormal Polyglot</a>" <a href="https://www.Writing.Com/main/interactive-story/item_id/1510047/action/view/chapter_map/112211111112221122111122212121121121211221212112121112122112" target="_blank" title="Open in new window."><img border="0" height="12" loading="lazy" onmouseout="$(this).css('opacity', '.4');" onmouseover="$(this).css('opacity', '1');" src="https://www.Writing.Com/nw.gif" style="opacity:.4;" width="12"/></a></span></div></div>


path: 1122111111122211221111222121211211212112212121121211121221111111
author_id: imaj
title: Miko's Chronicle, part 6
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>The foreigner had kicked open the door forcefully and strode into the room.  “Don’t listen to it Miko,” his voice boomed.  Miko stared blankly for a few seconds, quite unable to make sense of what he had said.  She half heartedly raised her free hand to one of her ears, but still found herself unable to let go of the sword.  “The kitsune is trying to trick you.”<br/>
<br/>
“The fox is what,” asked Miko, her mind reeling.  The cloying smell of the cakes begged for her attention again.<br/>
<br/>
“Don’t listen to him dearie,” interrupted the old woman.  “You trust your old Granny don’t you?”<br/>
<br/>
“Enough,” said the foreigner forcefully.  Suddenly he didn’t seem so small any more.  The foreigner raised an arm, holding his hand open.  An incandescent light erupted from his palm and shot towards the old woman, enveloping her in a white glow.  The woman seemed to melt away, fizzling under the glare of the light.  Patches of orange fur showed through here and there as she disappeared from sight.<br/>
<br/>
It was a fox, if a fox could stand on it hind legs and reach the height of a man.  It grinned uncertainly, exposing unpleasant and needle sharp fangs for Miko to see.  Its expression was at once weirdly alien and yet all too human looking.  Perhaps most strangely of all, it didn’t have one tail, but many.  Miko counted them, eight in all.<br/>
<br/>
“We do this he hard way then” said the fox, dropping the tray to the floor.  The contents spilled out and Miko noticed they now looked rotten and mouldy rather than tantalising.  <br/>
<br/>
The fox tensed it legs and leapt.  Miko brought the sword up quickly, but the fox wasn’t jumping towards her.  It landed beside her mother, grabbing her with its claws and hauling her roughly to her feet.<br/>
<br/>
“Miko,” shouted her mother, her eyes suddenly alert again.<br/>
<br/>
“What a touching reunion,” sneered the fox.  It ran its snout alongside Miko’s mother’s neck and grinned unpleasantly.  “Hate to cut it short.”  The fox raked one set of claws along Miko’s mother’s belly.  There was a glimpse of crimson beneath her robe and she fell shrieking to the floor.  “You got me,” sniggered the fox.  “I lied.”<br/>
<br/>
Miko fought he urge to run screaming at the fox.  She attacked incautiously the night before and when training with her father – it had not worked.  This time, she realised, the stakes were higher.  Instead she advanced cautiously as the fox bounced towards her.  The fox slashed quickly with its left claw and followed up with its right.  Miko easily read the attacks and batted them aside with the sword.  The claws sparked as the met the blade.<br/>
<br/>
The fox growled and pushed at Miko, intending to bowl her over.  She stepped smartly to the side and the fox staggered as it suddenly found no resistance to its forward momentum.  Miko brought the sword down sharply.  The fox was just quick enough to twist out of the way of the blow, but not quick enough to escape it completely.  It yelped in agony as the sword cleft its tails in two easily.  Eight tufts of blood splattered white fur fell to the floor.<br/>
<br/>
The fox rolled away and leapt back to its feet growling.  “You’ll pay for that,” it snarled.  Miko risked a glance sideways to check where the foreigner was.  He was kneeling beside the prone form of Miko’s mother.  <br/>
<br/>
When Miko turned back, the fox was already bounding straight at her again, its face a mask of pure rage.  It roared incoherently as it swung wildly at Miko.  The blow was clumsy and Miko caught it easily with the sword.  The fox whimpered as the blade cut its flesh and it skittered backwards.  It glared at Miko, pacing backwards and forwards angrily a few metres away from her.  She settled into a guard stance, waiting for the fox to attack again.<br/>
<br/>
The fox didn’t attack, instead it stopped pacing.  Its form shimmered and blurred.  Miko found herself staring at a copy of her mother.  The illusion flickered and flared, the image distorted.  It wasn’t convincing, but that wasn’t what the fox was attempting.  “You failed me Miko,” said the fox, its voice matching Miko’s mother’s.  The illusion shifted again and now the fake mother guts were rent and bloodied.  “You left me to die,” the fox added with a glimmer of a smirk.<br/>
<br/>
“Mother,” stammered Miko.  The sword pointed drooped a little in the air.<br/>
<br/>
The fox shifted again.  This time Miko found herself staring at the image of her father.  “You’re a disappointment Miko,” said the fox sternly.  “You failed to protect your mother and you will fail to protect me.”  The fake father’s face twisted into a mocking grin.  “My master will end your clan.  This time no one will escape his wrath.”<br/>
<br/>
“No more games,” stated the foreigner from behind Miko.  His voice was authoritative and the fox flinched.  Another incandescent beam erupted from the foreigner and the image of Miko’s father shattered.  The foxes flesh bubbled where the beam struck it and the room was filled the smell of charred fur.  “Tell me,” continued the foreigner.  “Where is Toyotomi Susa?”<br/>
<br/>
“You think I will tell you,” snarled the fox.  It howled and charged straight at the foreigner, ignoring Miko entirely.  She thrust at it as it passed.  Her father’s sword passed cleanly through the foxes neck and embedded itself in wall.  To her surprise, Miko managed to hold her ground and keep her grip on the sword.  The fox’s legs slipped out from under it, carried by what remained of its momentum.  It made a surprised gurgling sound and the expired.<br/>
<br/>
Miko let go of the sword, which remained buried in the wall and in the fox.  She turned round to the foreigner and where her mother lay.  “Mother,” she whimpered, her eyes wide.<br/>
<br/>
The foreigner looked at the floor.  “I’m sorry,” he said quietly.<br/>
<br/>
Miko pushed past him and fell to the floor beside her mother.  “Mother,” she screamed, throwing her arms round her mother.  There was no life left, no warmth or movement.  Hot, stinging tears started to flow again from Miko’s eyes. <br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">*****</div><br/>
<br/>
To rest your eyes for a moment: "<a href="https://www.Writing.Com/main/interactive-story/item_id/1510047/action/view/chapter_map/112211111112221122111122212121121121211221212112121112122112" target="_top" title="Interactive Story Chapter in Item # 1510047">The Perils of a Paranormal Polyglot</a>" <a href="https://www.Writing.Com/main/interactive-story/item_id/1510047/action/view/chapter_map/112211111112221122111122212121121121211221212112121112122112" target="_blank" title="Open in new window."><img border="0" height="12" loading="lazy" onmouseout="$(this).css('opacity', '.4');" onmouseover="$(this).css('opacity', '1');" src="https://www.Writing.Com/nw.gif" style="opacity:.4;" width="12"/></a><br/>
</span></div></div>


path: 11221111111222112211112221212112112121122121211212111212211111111
author_id: imaj
title: Miko's Chronicle, part 7
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>After a few minutes, when there were no more tears left to cry, Miko felt a hand take her by the shoulder gently.  The foreigner helped Miko to her feet.  “You’re a hard girl to find,” he said ruefully.  “You know that?”  Miko stared at him dumbfounded, unsure what to make of the foreigner.  “How did you find your way here?”<br/>
<br/>
Miko was too numb to complain, or to query.  She answered simply:  “I followed the comb.”<br/>
<br/>
“Followed the comb,” repeated the foreigner, his face screwed up in confusion.  “I don’t understand Miko.”  Miko stood dumbly, she didn’t have the energy to talk any more.  “Listen, I know you’re hurting right now girl,” continued the foreigner.  “But your father is still out there and he needs your help.  You need to let me help you.”<br/>
<br/>
Miko breathed deeply.  “The comb,” she said, pulling it from the pocket where she had placed it.  “It showed me the way.”<br/>
<br/>
The foreigner took the comb carefully between his thumb and forefinger, turning it over and examining it closely.  His eyebrows suddenly shot upward.  “Well that certainly confirms something,” he said wryly.<br/>
<br/>
Miko’s curiosity sparked, dulling the pain she felt.  “What do you mean,” she asked anxiously.<br/>
<br/>
“I’m getting ahead of myself, aren’t I,” replied the man with a faint smile.  “I feel like I should properly introduce myself.  I’m a friend of your father’s Miko, name’s Charles Brennan.”<br/>
<br/>
“I’m Miko Toyotomi… sir,” replied Miko respectfully.  The deferential slipped out without her meaning to say it.  It just seemed somehow appropriate.  “What did you mean about confirming something,” she asked again quickly.<br/>
<br/>
“Didn’t you read that letter I left girl,” asked Charles.<br/>
<br/>
“I don’t know, uh, whatever language it was,” replied Miko with a touch of embarrassment.  “English?”<br/>
<br/>
“Mostly English,” replied Charles with a faint smile.  “You could say that me and your father are in the same line of work.  He thought you might want to come work with me.”<br/>
<br/>
“Work with you,” said Miko with a brittle smile.  “I want to fight monsters like my father does.”  She stopped to pull the sword from where it was still embedded into the wall.  The corpse of the fox crashed to the floor as she pulled it clear.  “I want to defend Japan with my father’s sword.”  Miko wiped the sword on a clean part of the fox’s fur.<br/>
<br/>
“I don’t doubt that you could,” replied the foreigner, his smile warming.  Miko couldn’t help but flush with pride a little.  “The way your father told me, he said you had a link to Hachiman and Izanagi.”  Miko nodded, she remembered her father saying as much to her.  “That’s what I would call having Malacandra and Catilindria as your <i>ousiarchs</i>.  Actually that’s exactly what he said in the letter: ‘what you would call a Catilindria <i>ousiarch</i>’.”<br/>
<br/>
“I don’t see what’s so bad about having a link to the gods,” replied Miko stonily.  “It helped me fight that fox, didn’t it?”<br/>
<br/>
The man’s smile broadened again very briefly.  “It did, didn’t it?  Your father would have been proud of you if he’d seen that.  Might not have shown it, but he’d have been proud nonetheless.”<br/>
<br/>
“I didn’t save mother though,” interrupted Miko.  Her face fell as she turned back to look at her mother’s remains.<br/>
<br/>
“You still did well,” said Charles.  “If you hadn’t, you’d have been dead too and the fox would have the katana.”  He cast his gaze downwards for a moment.  “It’s my fault, I should have found you sooner,” he sighed.  “I’m getting too old for this sort of thing, it’s been a while since I’ve been in the field.”<br/>
<br/>
The pair stood silently for a minute.  Miko didn’t know what to say.<br/>
<br/>
“But the fact that you have these <i>ousiarchs </i>does make you special Miko,” continued Charles, his eyes twinkling.  “It means that you could join us, be one of the <i>Stellae Errante</i>.  That’s what the comb confirmed.  Your link to Catilindria brought it to life, to show you how to find your mother.  Did you breathe on it?”<br/>
<br/>
Miko cast her mind back to the morning.  “I don’t think so.  I think I was crying a little when it started moving.”<br/>
<br/>
“Yes that makes sense too,” said Charles, rubbing his beard with a free hand.  “The tears could give it life if they landed on it.”<br/>
<br/>
“But why can’t I do what my father does,” asked Miko.  “You just said I’d be good at it.”<br/>
<br/>
“It’s his katana,” explained the foreigner.  “It’s linked to Arbol, what you would call Amaterasu. The katana channels its, her, power.  I can see that now, clear as day.  Without an Arbol <i>ousiarch </i>you wouldn’t be able to use it fully.”  He smiled faintly again.  “That’s why he sent me the letter.  He knows how much being just like him means to you,” continued Charles, as if he was finally just realising something.  “The best way for you to do that is to join the <i>Stellae</i>.” <br/>
<br/>
“I want to save my father,” said Miko flatly.<br/>
<br/>
“That’s exactly what we’re going to do,” grinned Charles.  “It’s a pity we couldn’t get its master’s location out of that Kitsune.”  He gave the fox’s dead body a gentle nudge with his foot.  “Eight tails, that’s got to be symbolic somehow…”<br/>
<br/>
Miko frowned.  A thought bubbled to the surface amongst the tangled memories of the last day.  “It did tell us, um, sir.”<br/>
<br/>
Charles turned and looked at Miko.  “Well out with it girl.”<br/>
<br/>
“Remember when it said ‘My master will end your clan’,” explained Miko.  “My history teacher told me yesterday that the Toyotomi Clan ended at the siege of Osaka.  The fox said no one would escape this time.  That’s what it meant,” added Miko excitedly.  “Whoever its master is, they are going to try to kill my father at Osaka castle!”<br/>
<br/>
Charles walked over to the door before turning back round.  He grinned at Miko wickedly.  “Well what are you waiting for girl,” he said.  “Let’s go.”<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">*****</div><br/>
<br/>
To rest your eyes for a moment: "<a href="https://www.Writing.Com/main/interactive-story/item_id/1510047/action/view/chapter_map/112211111112221122111122212121121121211221212112121112122112" target="_top" title="Interactive Story Chapter in Item # 1510047">The Perils of a Paranormal Polyglot</a>" <a href="https://www.Writing.Com/main/interactive-story/item_id/1510047/action/view/chapter_map/112211111112221122111122212121121121211221212112121112122112" target="_blank" title="Open in new window."><img border="0" height="12" loading="lazy" onmouseout="$(this).css('opacity', '.4');" onmouseover="$(this).css('opacity', '1');" src="https://www.Writing.Com/nw.gif" style="opacity:.4;" width="12"/></a></span></div></div>


path: 112211111112221122111122212121121121211221212112121112122111111111
author_id: imaj
title: Miko's Chronicle, part 8
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>Charles parked the compact van at the side of the road, opposite the bridge across the moat.  It was only thirty miles between Kyoto and Osaka, but somehow the journey had taken them the rest of the day:  Delays in traffic, problems with the van, it sometimes even felt like time was stretching out itself.  It was nearly midnight and the street seemed abandoned.<br/>
<br/>
“This is where we get off,” said Charles, nodding towards the bollards that impeded progress across the bridge.  “We walk from here on.”  He climbed out his door, slamming it behind him.<br/>
<br/>
Miko followed suit, walking round the side of the van to its rear door.  They had found the van at the fox’s house, the laurel wreath logo of a rice-liquor firm on its side jogging Miko’s memory.  She’d seen it the day before, racing down the road outside Daigo Junior High.  Miko had baulked a little at getting inside the van when she had realised it was the one the fox had used to abduct her parents.<br/>
<br/>
Then again, she thought as Charles opened the van’s rear door, it felt right to be using the tools of her parents abductors against them.  He passed Miko the sports bag with her fathers sword and peered inside.  The van walls were lined with crates of rice-liquor.<br/>
<br/>
“I think some of this saki might prove useful,” he said, prising one of the crates open.  He pulled out a couple of jugs and place them in Miko’s bag.  “Just something I was thinking of after I saw that kitsune’s tail.”<br/>
<br/>
“I don’t think this is the time for getting drunk,” replied Miko stonily.  She drew her father’s sword from the bag.  “If you want to bring the rice-liquor, you can carry the bag,” she added.  “I need both hands for the sword anyway.”<br/>
<br/>
Charles smiled wryly.  “I think I can bear that burden girl,” he said hoisting the bag.  He crossed the road and set off across the bridge.<br/>
<br/>
Miko checked for traffic before scurrying after him.  The area seemed quiet, abandoned even.  She looked over the railings as she crossed the bridge, the  inky blackness of the moat was still.  “It’s so quiet,” whispered Miko as she caught up to the foreigner.  “Where is everyone?”<br/>
<br/>
“There’s definitely something at work,” explained Charles as he reached the heavy wooden gates that lead into the castle grounds.  He knelt beside them and examined them closely.  Miko shivered as she waited.  “Closed, but unbarred,” Charles pronounced eventually.  “Come on, give me a hand,” he continued, standing back up and pushing at one of the gates.<br/>
<br/>
Miko joined in and the gate moved fractionally back before seizing up.  There was just enough of a crack in the doorway to slip through.  Charles squeezed through the gap before Miko could say anything.  She took a quick look around at the deserted bridge before ducking through herself.<br/>
<br/>
Inside the gate a short, dark, tunnel lead inside to the castle grounds.  Charles was already moving ahead, silhouetted against the mouth of the tunnel.  His shoes clacked against the flagstones as he walked ahead.<br/>
<br/>
“Something tells me this is the place,” he said as he reached the end of the tunnel.<br/>
<br/>
“What,” called Miko.  She half-ran to catch up, almost colliding into the foreigner.  “Wow,” she said, her eyes widening.  The grounds were overgrown, the grass had somehow swollen up to thick trunks that reached several metres high.  It waved menacingly, despite the stillness of the air.<br/>
<br/>
“That could be a problem,” muttered Charles.  A couple of tendrils curled experimentally towards him.  “How do we get past this?”<br/>
<br/>
“We cut,” said Miko as she pulled her father’s sword from its scabbard.  She took the ends of the tendrils that were winding towards Charles with a flashing upwards cut.  The tendrils reeled backwards.  “See,” she exclaimed.  Miko lunged forwards with a sweeping horizontal slash, yelling as she did.  The blow split several of the trunks just above ground level.  The severed stalks seemed to float for a second before flying backwards, flattening the monster grass behind them.<br/>
<br/>
The surviving grass trunks around the pair strained to pull themselves away from the sword.  Where the grass had been flattened, it shrunk away and evaporated, leaving only a well cut lawn behind.  “Well that seemed to work,” said Charles absentmindedly.  He looked at the sword curiously.<br/>
<br/>
“What,” asked Miko turning back to face the foreigner.<br/>
<br/>
“Oh, nothing,” he replied after moments thought, his face breaking into a grin.  “Remind me to ask your father where the sword came from when we see him.”<br/>
<br/>
“It’s my family’s sword,” replied Miko flatly.  “We’re wasting time,” she added, setting off at a run down the gap in the oversized grass.  <br/>
<br/>
The grass swayed as she ran past.  A single trunk bent itself at an angle just ahead of her, blocking her path.  Miko jumped over it, slicing with the sword as she went by.  Miko didn’t look back as the severed trunk fell to the ground.  She was too busy fending off attacks from other tendrils and trunks.<br/>
<br/>
“Slow down girl,” called Charles from behind her.  Light flickered and flared behing Miko as he summoned whatever fire he had used against the fox earlier.<br/>
<br/>
Miko picked up pace.  A pair of crossed in front of her, forming an X shape.  She dived and rolled through the gap, twisting her grip on the sword to avoid it becoming tangled in the ground.  Miko leapt back up as the grass pressed in on her.  She brought the sword round in a glittering arc, screaming her defiance as she did so.  Miko spun, bringing the sword full circle.  Everywhere she moved, large sections of oversized grass fell to the ground and melted away to nothing.  The grass pressed in one last time and she reversed direction, still yelling at the top of her lungs.<br/>
<br/>
For a second everything was still.<br/>
<br/>
Then the grass flew backwards, flattening the growth behind it as it went.  Miko fell to her knees exhausted, leaning heavily on the sword.  She could only watch as the felled monster trunks faded away.  All of it.  Every last bit was gone.<br/>
<br/>
A few metres in front of Miko, Charles picked himself up from the ground.  He dusted himself off and turned round slowly, his mouth agape.  “Well done,” was all he managed to say.  “Very well done Miko.”  He offered Miko a hand.  She gladly took it and Charles helped her back up to her feet.  “You must be exhausted,” he added.<br/>
<br/>
Miko nodded stiffly.  “Now what,” she said, her voice hoarse.<br/>
<br/>
“Now we head into the central tower, unless I’ve missed my guess,” explained Charles.  He offered Miko his shoulder.  “Here, lean on me.”  Miko placed her father’s sword back in its scabbard and hobbled beside Charles.  “That was an impressive display Miko but you’ve drained yourself.  No, not permanently,” he added when he saw the look in Miko’s eyes.  “You’ve a power in you, and your grass cutting katana there draws on it.  You should avoid drawing on it too deeply.”<br/>
<br/>
“I see,” said Miko quietly as Charles led her to the inner wall gatehouse.<br/>
<br/>
“You’re young,” said Charles with a smile.  “And it’s the first time you’ve drawn so heavily on your anima.”<br/>
<br/>
Miko paused and stared at the foreigner.  “Your Japanese is really bad.  That’s not how you say that word at all.”<br/>
<br/>
Charles frowned for a moment.  “No, anima,” he explained, examining the gate as they arrived at it.  “It’s a Latin word.  Vital energy, life force, that’s what it is.  It fuels my talents.  Yours too girl, but I’m more practiced.”<br/>
<br/>
“What,” interrupted Miko.<br/>
<br/>
“Think of it like this,” replied Charles, his eyes twinkling again.  “Imagine I’ve got a big mug of coffee.  I only take small sips from it.  That’s all I need.  This one’s not blocked at all,” he said nodding at the gate.  He gave it a nudged and it swung open silently.<br/>
<br/>
“So you have lots of coffee,” said Miko stonily, following Charles through.  There was another tunnel, this one leading up an incline.<br/>
<br/>
“Exactly,” said Charles striding ahead.  “Occasionally the waitress drops by and gives me a refill, but only occasionally.  Come on,” he said, turning round to look at Miko.  She half-ran to catch up.  “Now you have a really small cup, maybe a thimbleful, but you’re holding it under a fountain.  It fills back up much quicker than mine.  Which is why you could barely stand a minute ago but now you can run again.”<br/>
<br/>
“Oh,” said Mikos, light dawning in her eyes.  “So I could do all that again?  With the grass and the sword?”<br/>
<br/>
“Not for a couple of days,” replied the foreigner.  “Not if you don’t want to hurt yourself permanently, but you’ve recovered a lot quicker than I would have if I’d pushed myself that hard.  Ah, here we are.”<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">*****</div><br/>
<br/>
To rest your eyes for a moment: "<a href="https://www.Writing.Com/main/interactive-story/item_id/1510047/action/view/chapter_map/112211111112221122111122212121121121211221212112121112122112" target="_top" title="Interactive Story Chapter in Item # 1510047">The Perils of a Paranormal Polyglot</a>" <a href="https://www.Writing.Com/main/interactive-story/item_id/1510047/action/view/chapter_map/112211111112221122111122212121121121211221212112121112122112" target="_blank" title="Open in new window."><img border="0" height="12" loading="lazy" onmouseout="$(this).css('opacity', '.4');" onmouseover="$(this).css('opacity', '1');" src="https://www.Writing.Com/nw.gif" style="opacity:.4;" width="12"/></a></span></div></div>


path: 1122111111122211221111222121211211212112212121121211121221111111111
author_id: imaj
title: Miko's Chronicle, part 9
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>Miko reached the end of the tunnel.  A gravel path lead across a well manicured lawn to the central tower.  “This is it,” she asked, pointing to the tower.  Light spilled out an open door.<br/>
<br/>
“I don’t see where else it could be,” stated Charles.  Miko followed him warily across the lawn, her hand resting lightly on the hilt of the sword.  Her gaze swivelled from left to right and back again but no threats emerged from the darkness.<br/>
<br/>
Nothing challenged them as the entered the central tower, the crunch of the gravel underneath their feet giving way to the soft clunking of wooden panelling under their feet.  Charles led the way inside, stopping at each junction to consider before choosing a direction.<br/>
<br/>
Charles motioned to Miko to be quiet as they reached a corridor that bound a large hall.  He nodded to one of the gaps in the inner wall that led into the hall itself.  Miko edged up to the gap and peeked round it.<br/>
<br/>
The hall was huge, with balconies overlooking from the floors above.  Miko’s father knelt in the centre, his head bowed and drowsy.  Behind him, a huge scaly mass squatted in the hall.  Long serpentine necks erupted from the mass, ending in lizard like heads, eight in all.  The heads curled and twisted round beside her father.  Most were asleep but one of the heads was dopily bobbling backwards and forwards, blinking hazily.<br/>
<br/>
Miko ducked back behind the wall.  “What is that,” she whispered to Charles anxiously.<br/>
<br/>
“You don’t know,” whispered Charles softly.  “Orochi, the eight forked serpent…”<br/>
<br/>
Charles’ answer was interrupted by the clacking sound of someone walking across the hall.  Miko looked round the side of the wall.  What she saw was more shocking than seeing her father ensorcelled, even more shocking than the dragon sleeping by him.<br/>
<br/>
The girl walking into the hall from the left hand side was herself.<br/>
<br/>
Miko watched her duplicate amazed.  The fake was wearing Miko’s school uniform, but apart from that she appeared identical.  Miko ducked back round behind the wall.  “That’s…  That’s me in there,” she stuttered.<br/>
<br/>
“Another kitsune,” explained Charles.  He pulled one of jugs of rice-liquor out of the bag and opened it.<br/>
<br/>
“This is not the time to get drunk,” interrupted Miko sourly.<br/>
<br/>
“Actually, this is my plan,” smilled Charles broadly. “You really don’t now about Orochi,” he asked before rolling the jug along the floor.  Miko could hear the floor inside the hall groaning as the serpent shifted its bulk.  A scaly head appear through the gap in the wall to one side and sniffed at the jug.  “Well,” whispered Charles.  “Make with the…” he added making a chopping motion with his hand.<br/>
<br/>
Orochi gobbled up the jug noisily as Miko slid the sword from the scabbard.  She lifted the sword high, ready to bring it down with both hands.  She flinched as the serpent belched loudly, its eyes swivelling wildly.  The sword came down, as fast and hard as she could make it.<br/>
<br/>
The severed head fell to the floor with a loud thud.  The neck thrashed wildly for a few seconds before falling to the ground itself.  Charles grabbed another jug and moved round the fallen head quickly.  “You head in the other direction and rescue your father,” he whispered.  “I’ll keep the beast distracted.”<br/>
<br/>
Miko could only nod dumbly.  She peeked round the gap on the opposite side from the fallen head, trying to ignore the way it seemed to be staring at her.  Her duplicate had disappeared, but another two of Orochi’s heads were rousing themselves from their slumber.<br/>
<br/>
One sniffed at the air.  “Is that…” it asked.<br/>
<br/>
“I think it is,” replied the second, sniffing at the air in turn.  “Oh, look at that,” it added, nodding towards its fallen comrade.<br/>
<br/>
The first head sighed and shook.  “I can’t believe he fell for the rice-liquor trick you know,” it said sadly.  “Again.”<br/>
<br/>
“It’s coming from over there,” said the second head, pointing in the direction of the left hand side of the hall.  There was row of evenly spaced gaps in the wall that led to the corridor.  “Did you see that,” it asked as Charles dashed across one of the gaps.<br/>
<br/>
Miko watched the two heads bicker with one another as they snaked towards the left had side of the hall.  As soon as their attention was elsewhere she snuck round in the opposite direction.  She crossed each gap carefully and silently until she was broadly opposite to Charles.<br/>
<br/>
Four heads slumbered on the floor between her and her father.  Miko tip-toed silently into the hall and picked her way carefully across it.  One sleeping serpent head yawned loudly as she stepped over it.  Miko held herself still, unable to move until the head settled back to sleep.<br/>
<br/>
“It does smell like <i>good </i>rice-liquor though,” grumbled one of the woken heads from the opposite side of Orochi’s mound like body.  Miko skirted round another sleeping head.  Her father wasn’t far now<br/>
<br/>
“Well that’s the point isn’t it,” snorted the other.  “You stick yourself through that hole and you’ll get a sharp sword in the neck area though.”  Miko shook her father gently.  He looked up at her, his face scrunched up in bewilderment.  “Get it? <i>Point</i>!”<br/>
<br/>
“Ha ha,” deadpanned the first head.  “Look, he’s not where the rice wine is, he’s hiding behind the wall.  Why don’t we just go <i>through </i>it?”<br/>
<br/>
“Father,” whispered Miko quietly, taking hold of his hand.<br/>
<br/>
“That’s actually a pretty good idea,” replied the second head.  “I’m surprised you came up with it.”  Miko’s father blinked a couple of times and slowly, unsteadily, rose to his feet.<br/>
<br/>
“One of us has to do thinking round here,” snarked the first head as Miko lead her dumbfounded father away from Orochi.  She pulled him out of the hall and into the bounding corridor just as the first head smashed itself into the opposite wall.<br/>
<br/>
Miko set her father down on the floor, his back against the wall.  “Miko,” he asked hesitantly.  In the distance Miko could hear Orochi batter its heads against a wall.  She took his hand and placed his sword in it.  Her father’s eyes widened and the confusion on his face vanished like a mist cleared by a gust of wind.  “Miko,” he repeated, this time more confidently.  “What’s happening here?”<br/>
<br/>
“You were kidnapped,” she whispered in reply.  “By some foxes.  Orochi is here.”<br/>
<br/>
“I see,” said Miko’s father solemnly.  Again the sound of Orochi battering its heads against the wall could be heard.  “Your mother?”<br/>
<br/>
Miko bowed her head, tears brimming in her eyes.  She could not look her father in the eye.<br/>
<br/>
“I see,” he said again, his voice tinged with sadness.  “How did you get here?”<br/>
<br/>
“Charles helped me,” began Miko.<br/>
<br/>
“Charles,” asked her father.  “Charles Brennon is here?”<br/>
<br/>
On cue, there was the sound of splintering wood and stone as Orochi finally knocked through the wall it had been hitting.  “Miko,” called Charles from the opposite side of the hall.  “A little help here would be good.”<br/>
<br/>
“You stay here Miko,” said her father, rising to his feet.  “Stay safe.”  He grasped his sword with both hands and it started glowing softly.  He stepped smartly back into the hall, sword raised and ready.  “I’m here old friend,” he called out.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">*****</div><br/>
<br/>
To rest your eyes for a moment: "<a href="https://www.Writing.Com/main/interactive-story/item_id/1510047/action/view/chapter_map/112211111112221122111122212121121121211221212112121112122112" target="_top" title="Interactive Story Chapter in Item # 1510047">The Perils of a Paranormal Polyglot</a>" <a href="https://www.Writing.Com/main/interactive-story/item_id/1510047/action/view/chapter_map/112211111112221122111122212121121121211221212112121112122112" target="_blank" title="Open in new window."><img border="0" height="12" loading="lazy" onmouseout="$(this).css('opacity', '.4');" onmouseover="$(this).css('opacity', '1');" src="https://www.Writing.Com/nw.gif" style="opacity:.4;" width="12"/></a></span></div></div>


path: 11221111111222112211112221212112112121122121211212111212211111111111
author_id: imaj
title: Miko's Chronicle, part 10
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>Miko stuck her head round the side of the wall to watch.  Several sections of the wall at the opposite side of the hall were broken and the two awake heads of Orochi were closing in menacingly on Charles.  “Good to know,” he called back.<br/>
<br/>
The two serpentine heads snapped back round to look at where Miko’s father stood.  They wailed in anger as they spotted him.  Oily black smoke rose from the nostrils of one of the heads.  It opened its mouth and spat out a tongue of flame.  Miko’s father blurred as he moved and by the time Miko had worked out where he had gone, three more sleeping dragon like heads lay on the floor separated from their long necks.<br/>
<br/>
The remaining two sleeping heads woke up screaming and weaved their way towards Miko’s father.  He danced round them, fending off their lunges with almost casual ease.  One of the two heads that had woken earlier joined in but only succeeded in tying itself in knots as it tried to follow Miko’s father.  Its head joined the others on the floor for its pains.<br/>
<br/>
Miko suddenly noticed that the last head, the one that hadn’t joined in had been positioning itself to throw another gout of fire.  The oily smoke curled out its nostrils again, but just as it opened its mouth and prepared to strike a flash of light struck it in the back of the head.<br/>
<br/>
Charles emerged from the rubble of the walls that Orochi had knocked down, throwing beams of light from his hands in quick succession.  They didn’t do much damage to Orochi beyond knocking the head about, but it was enough to put it off its aim.  It howled in frustration.<br/>
<br/>
Miko’s father glanced round and realised the trap Orochi was trying to lay for him.  He ducked and rolled under another head as it lunged at him again and sprinted for the edge of the hall.  Three tails lashed out as he passed but he jumped over them with a great leap before disappearing through one of the gaps at the back of the hall.<br/>
<br/>
Orochi’s three remaining heads turned their attention back to Charles.  He was retreating slowly and sure-footedly back to the edge of the hall, liberally spraying Orochi with blasts of light as he did so.  One head made a lunge, trying to come at him from an awkward angle.  Charles spotted it easily and brought both his hands together.  A dazzling spray of fire erupted from his hands hitting the head squarely on the snout and stunning it, giving Charles enough time to run back out the hall.<br/>
<br/>
The heads howled in unison.  Miko dashed along the corridor, making her way to where her father had exited the hall.  As she approached the turn in the corridor to where it ran along the back wall of the hall, she heard voices ahead.<br/>
<br/>
“Miko,” came her father’s voice sternly.  “I thought I told you to stay safe.”<br/>
<br/>
“I had to see you,” came the reply, sounding oddly familiar to Miko’s ears.  “To make sure you were alright.”  Miko skidded round the corner, desperate to see who it was talking.<br/>
<br/>
Her father stood a few metres ahead, his back turned towards Miko.  The fox stood in front of him.  It had changed, its clothes now matched those Miko wore.  The duplicate stared past Miko’s father and directly at Miko.  It smirked evilly at her.<br/>
<br/>
“No,” shouted Miko.  “It’s not me!”<br/>
<br/>
Her father had enough time to turn his head round before the fox struck.  Its hand blurred – flesh turned to fur and claws that dug deep into Miko’s father’s stomach.  Miko could only watch as her father doubled over, clutching at his gut.  The sword fell to the ground with a metallic clunk and the glow enveloping it faded away.<br/>
<br/>
“Too late,” laughed the fox.  It brought its bloodied claw to its mouth and licked at it theatrically as Miko’s father collapsed to the floor.  “Far too late little girl.”  It flicked its wrist and the fur shimmered and faded back into a hand.<br/>
<br/>
Miko screamed as she lost herself in fury and charged at the fox.  Its look of superiority vanished in an instant as Miko grappled it and bowled it over.  The pair rolled over, entangled.  Miko found herself atop the fox when they came to a rest and started pummelling her doppelganger with her fists.<br/>
<br/>
For a few seconds the fox looked like it couldn’t quite believe what was happening.  Then it snarled and shimmered and Miko found herself staring down at the wiry and lean frame of the fox.  It easily kicked Miko over and pinned her down with its hind legs.<br/>
<br/>
The foxy laughed a wheezy laugh as its claws snikked out.  It made great play of showing them to Miko as she squirmed helplessly underneath it.  The fox ran its claws gently along Miko’s face, scratching but not breaking the skin.  It dug them into floor on either side of Miko’s head, missing her by inches.  The fox was toying with her and Miko knew it.<br/>
<br/>
Miko thrashed about, trying to escape the fox’s grasp but it was too strong for her.  Her arms flailed about uselessly as the fox laughed at her predicament.  Then she felt something holding her right hand.  She turned her head to look:  Her father had crawled over, smearing blood all over the floor.  He pressed a short dagger into Miko’s palm and closed her fingers round the hilt.<br/>
<br/>
Miko looked back at the fox.  It was too wrapped up in tormenting Miko to notice the dagger.  She pulled her arm in with a quick jerk and thrust the dagger at the fox’s scrawny chest.  The narrow point of the blade met with little resistance and Miko pushed it in deep.  The fox frowned in confusion before toppling to the side, blood gurgling from both its mouth and the wound.<br/>
<br/>
Miko scrabbled over to her father, propping him up against the wall.  He smiled faintly at Miko before coughing up some blood.  “Miko,” he said quietly.<br/>
<br/>
“Don’t die,” shout Miko, tears welling up in her eyes.  “Don’t die, I’ll get help, I’ll…”<br/>
<br/>
“No Miko,” said her father with some difficulty.  “There are more important things now.”  He smiled again and cocked his head to the side, as if thinking what to say.<br/>
<br/>
“Father,” whispered Miko, her lip trembling.<br/>
<br/>
“Someone has to stop Orochi,” said her father slowly.  He clumsily lifted his hand and placed it on Miko’s shoulder.  “You have to stop Orochi.  It cannot be allowed to escape this place.”  His head slumped for what seemed like an age before he continued.  “Take my sword Miko.”<br/>
<br/>
“I can’t,” she replied.<br/>
<br/>
“Take it,” he said, his voice momentarily capturing the firmness that Miko was accustomed to.  Miko’s father was suddenly racked by a coughing fit, spilling blood dribbling down his chin.  “You’ve….  You’ve earned it Miko…”  The light faded from his eyes and his head slumped one final time.<br/>
<br/>
“Father,” said Miko quietly.  She shook her father’s lifeless body but he did not move.  “Father,” she said more urgently.  There was no response.  Tears streamed down Miko’s face, but she had no time to waste on them.  She glanced at where the sword had fallen.<br/>
<br/>
Miko picked up her father’s sword, no it was <i>her </i>sword now, and strode back into the hall with a grim determination.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">*****</div><br/>
<br/>
To rest your eye for a moment: "<a href="https://www.Writing.Com/main/interactive-story/item_id/1510047/action/view/chapter_map/112211111112221122111122212121121121211221212112121112122112" target="_top" title="Interactive Story Chapter in Item # 1510047">The Perils of a Paranormal Polyglot</a>" <a href="https://www.Writing.Com/main/interactive-story/item_id/1510047/action/view/chapter_map/112211111112221122111122212121121121211221212112121112122112" target="_blank" title="Open in new window."><img border="0" height="12" loading="lazy" onmouseout="$(this).css('opacity', '.4');" onmouseover="$(this).css('opacity', '1');" src="https://www.Writing.Com/nw.gif" style="opacity:.4;" width="12"/></a></span></div></div>


path: 112211111112221122111122212121121121211221212112121112122111111111111
author_id: imaj
title: Miko's Chronicle, part 11
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>Orochi was firing off blasts of flame at the front of the hall.  At the walls, through the gaps into the outer corridor, it kept on blasting away, trying to keep Charles pinned.  The rain of fire ground to a halt as each of Orochi’s three remaining heads turned round to face Miko.<br/>
<br/>
“You have our sword little girl,” growled one of the head ominously.<br/>
<br/>
“Where is the warrior,” asked the second.  The third head snorted ominously, sending puffs of thick black smoke into the air.<br/>
<br/>
“My father is dead demon,” stated Miko.  She felt a tear trickle down the side of her face.  “And so is your servant.  You are next,” she shouted, pouring all her anger into it.  Orochi flinched, its heads visibly swayed by the force of Miko’s shout.<br/>
<br/>
The heads looked at one another, nodding almost imperceptibly.  One head immediately launched another burst of fire directly at Miko.  She span out of the way quickly.  The fire singed the floor where she had been moments before but Miko was already moving away.  The other two heads dived in towards her.<br/>
<br/>
The first head sped in ahead of the other, moving in low.  Miko vaulted on it, taking just long enough for a rough hack at its eyes before jumping back off.  The blinded head yowled in pain, breathing thick choking smoke that missed completely.  As it flailed about, it knocked the last head just as it was coming in towards Miko.<br/>
<br/>
Miko saw the opportunity and skidded to a halt before turning about and running straight at the dazed head, sword held high.  An overarm slash dispatched the dazed head, sending it rolling across the floor.  “That was for my father,” yelled Miko.<br/>
<br/>
The fire breathing head tried another shot, moving as close in as it dared.  Miko barely had enough time to duck underneath the blast of flame, rolling to the floor as she did so.  Though the fire had missed, it passed close enough to scorch and blister Miko’s left arm.  She yelped in pain.<br/>
<br/>
The blinded head took a wild swipe at Miko, using her cry of pain to home in on here.  It caught a glancing blow on Miko’s legs as she stood back up, sending her back to the floor.  The head growled its pleasure and sent another burst of thick smoke rolling out.  It missed completely, giving Miko enough time to haul herself back to her feet and drive toward it.  He strike went straight through the creatures destroyed eye and penetrated its brain.  “And that,” shouted Miko as the head shuddered and fell still.  “Was for my mother.”<br/>
<br/>
Miko pulled the sword clear and let her arm fall.  She wheezed from the effort, barely able to stand upright and gritting her teeth at the pain in her burnt arm.<br/>
<br/>
The last head regarded its fallen comrades, howling its rage.  It had no time left for clever tactics or manoeuvres.  It just wanted Miko dead, and it wanted her dead now.  In its bloodlust it dived straight at Miko.  Battered and bruised, Miko managed to limp to the side just in time as the head went screaming past.  With one last titanic effort of will she raised her sword and brought it down.  Orochi’s last head rolled to the floor and the beast finally fell still.  “That,” said Miko quietly as she watched the head come to a rest.  “That, was for me.”<br/>
<br/>
Dizzily, Miko turned round, surveying the devastation of the hall.  Walls had been knocked down.  Small fires were burning here and there.  A pile of rubble shifted as Charles disentangled himself from it.  Miko smiled at the foreigner as the world faded into blackness and she slipped into unconsciousness. <br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">*****</div><br/>
<br/>
The room swam lazily into focus as Miko opened her eyes.  She was dimly aware of a bed, some beeping electronics and something sticking into her hand.  Miko attempted to sit up, but felt woozy as soon as she tried.<br/>
<br/>
A shadow seemed to move beside her.  Miko blinked a couple of times until she realised that it was Charles, the foreigner.  He closed the book he had been reading and smiled at Miko.  “You’re awake,” he said.<br/>
<br/>
“Where am I,” asked Miko weakly.<br/>
<br/>
“Hospital,” explained Charles.  “I carried you out of the castle after you collapsed.  I did warn you drawing too much from yourself.”  He broke out into a wide smile.  “Planets, girl.  That was an amazing display.  I know fully trained Malacandrae that would have struggled to beat Orochi.”<br/>
<br/>
“What about my father,” asked Miko quietly.<br/>
<br/>
“I’m sorry Miko,” replied Charles, his expression suddenly solemn.<br/>
<br/>
“I see,” said Miko.  Charles helped silently as Miko tried to sit up again, propping her against some pillows.  She stared out the window for several minutes, deep in thought.  “I just wish…” she began before falling silent.  “I just wish he’d said something before he left.  To show that he cared…”  Tears formed in Miko’s eyes again.  “All he did was give me his sword and tell me to kill Orochi.”<br/>
<br/>
Charles put the book he had been reading down and took Miko by the hand.  “He did tell you, in his own way” he explained.  “Your father was a warrior, he lived to protect people that couldn’t protect themselves.  When he gave you his sword he was saying that you were a warrior and defender of the innocent too Miko.  For your father there was no higher token of esteem.”<br/>
<br/>
“Thank you,” replied Miko quietly.  She looked directly at Charles, her eyes wide with fear.  “What do I do now?  My family is gone, I have no aunts or uncles.  Where do I go?”<br/>
<br/>
Charles put Miko’s hand down and smiled faintly.  “I came to Japan to test if you would be suitable for the <i>Stellae Errante</i>.  I would say that you have more than passed.  If you want, if you ask to join us, then I will finish the training your father started.<br/>
<br/>
“You would do that,” asked Miko.<br/>
<br/>
“Let’s just say that I owe him a debt,” replied Charles enigmatically.<br/>
<br/>
“I don’t have any other choice, do I,” asked Miko.<br/>
<br/>
“You always have choices Miko,” replied the foreigner sternly.<br/>
<br/>
“But not good ones,” she sighed.  A pregnant silence hung in the air.  Miko realised that the next move was up to her.  “I’ll do it.  I want to join the <i>Stellae Errante</i>.”<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">*****</div><br/>
<br/>
And that seems to be all that Kali has written.  You put the book to one side and rest your eyes for a moment:  "<a href="https://www.Writing.Com/main/interactive-story/item_id/1510047/action/view/chapter_map/112211111112221122111122212121121121211221212112121112122112" target="_top" title="Interactive Story Chapter in Item # 1510047">The Perils of a Paranormal Polyglot</a>" <a href="https://www.Writing.Com/main/interactive-story/item_id/1510047/action/view/chapter_map/112211111112221122111122212121121121211221212112121112122112" target="_blank" title="Open in new window."><img border="0" height="12" loading="lazy" onmouseout="$(this).css('opacity', '.4');" onmouseover="$(this).css('opacity', '1');" src="https://www.Writing.Com/nw.gif" style="opacity:.4;" width="12"/></a><br/>
</span></div></div>


path: 112211111112221122111122212121121121211221212112121112122112
author_id: imaj
title: The Perils of a Paranormal Polyglot
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>You lean back in the chair and close your eyes for a few moments, thinking on what you’ve just read.  An image of the young Miko, adolescent and gawky forms in your mind and you doze fitfully for a few moments, imaging what it must have been like to be her.<br/>
<br/>
When you open you eyes again it is dark outside.<br/>
<br/>
You jump up from the chair as if it is electrified, scattering Kali’s notebook onto the floor, before running back into the living room.  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” you shout anxiously.  “I fell asleep.”<br/>
<br/>
Miko and Kali are sitting in the lounge as you enter:  Miko curled up in a chair and Kali lying back on the sofa.  Their conversation stops and they both turn to look at you, consternation etched on their faces.<br/>
<br/>
Miko glances at Kali, who’s mouth is slightly agape.  “Can you understand what I’m saying,” she says very slowly and carefully to you.<br/>
<br/>
“Uh…” you reply more than a little dumbly.  “Of course I can?”  Kali’s gaze flickers back and forth between you and Miko.<br/>
<br/>
“You know,” continues Miko slowly, uncurling her legs out from underneath her.  “That you are speaking in Japanese?”  She rises from the chair, her face starting to colour.<br/>
<br/>
“I’m what,” you sputter.<br/>
<br/>
“It’s bad enough,” says Miko, the tone and volume of her voice starting to climb.  “That you are standing there looking like that, but to have you inside here as well.”  She indicates her head by tapping on it with a finger.  “Don’t you go fucking about inside my head,” she screams and storm off towards her bedroom.<br/>
<br/>
You can only stand slack-jawed and watch her leave.  “What was that about,” asks Kali in English.  Now that you realise what you’ve been doing, you can clearly tell the difference between the two languages.<br/>
<br/>
You sit down in the seat Miko just vacated, unconsciously curling your feet underneath you.  Concentrating hard, you focus on trying to use English before speaking.  “I think,” you say slowly at first, then picking up speed as using your own native tongue becomes second nature again.  “I think I remembered some things about being Miko.  I was speaking Japanese.  Did I make a mess of things?”<br/>
<br/>
“Gracious, child, no,” replies Kali.  “But what upset Miko so much?”<br/>
<br/>
“She told me not to, um… go looking inside her head,” you reply, omitting Miko’s vulgarity.<br/>
<br/>
“I see,” says Kali, holding her hand to her chest very self consciously.  “I would say that everyone has secrets of a sort.  They might seem trivial to the rest of us, but they don’t want to relive them or have other people find out.  Can you remember any of her memories still?”<br/>
<br/>
You take a moment to think, but all you can find are your own memories.  “I don’t think so,” you reply.  “I can barely remember what we said.  I mean, I remember the meaning of it, but the words seem like nonsense to me now.”<br/>
<br/>
The pair of you sit there in silence.<br/>
<br/>
“Should I go speak to her?”<br/>
</span></div></div>


path: 1122111111122211221111222121211211212112212121121211121221121
author_id: seuzz
title: Pieces of the Puzzle That Is Will Prescott
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>"It's an interesting progression," Kali muses. Her eyes travel searchingly over your face. <br/>
<br/>
It's Monday night. You haven't spoken to Miko much, and she hasn't spoken much to you. She had covered for Kali on their job while your mentor stayed at the house during the day and put you through an exhausting regimen of meditation exercises. To your intense discomfort, Kali had also led you into Miko's room and bid you examine and touch various objects. You'd done it gingerly, and not only because it seemed like an invasion of privacy. Many of objects gave you a kind of electric shock, giving you discrete memories--Miko's memories--associated with them. You have nothing like a complete set, but it's enough to make you jumpy.<br/>
<br/>
Now it is evening, and though you are worn out, you are again in the living room with the two women.<br/>
<br/>
"There's no reason that I should have to examine the <i>Libra,</i> not with you here," Kali is now murmuring, apparently to herself. "But it would help if I understood its structure. Will," she says in a firmer voice. "Describe the book to me, page by page. Start with its cover, progress to its frontispiece--"<br/>
<br/>
"Its what?"<br/>
<br/>
"Don't have everything I have, do you?" Miko says with a sharp grin. "I know what <i>that</i> is."<br/>
<br/>
"Visualize the book, child," Kali says. "You can see it if you concentrate, can't you?"<br/>
<br/>
You blink, and the <i>Libra</i> itself seems to blaze before you. "Yeah," you mutter. It's not a happy sight.<br/>
<br/>
"Okay, so the cover is leather," you say. "Red. There are gold letters. They are really ornate and hard to read. I don't think they're magical, because I can't really make them out.<br/>
<br/>
"If you open it, the inside of the front cover is blank, but a sigil will appear after you buy it. You have to press a bloody thumbprint to it to 'claim' it. The title page has a row of faces on it. They're like optical illusions, and they change.<br/>
<br/>
"There's nothing on the flip side of the title page. There's a blank piece of paper. Except it wasn't blank the night I fell into the book. It was covered with a silvery writing."<br/>
<br/>
"Was the moon out?" Kali asks sharply.<br/>
<br/>
"I don't remember. I think so, though. It was pretty light inside the workroom. What does that mean?" you ask, for she has grunted softly. <br/>
<br/>
"It means 'Hmm.' Continue."<br/>
<br/>
You look at Miko, but her expression, though hard, is blank. "After you claim the book, you can turn that blank page."<br/>
<br/>
"What do mean?" Miko asks. "You can't open that page before--?"<br/>
<br/>
"Each page is locked," you explain. "You have to execute some spell before you can turn each page. But the spell doesn't explain what it does. Only <i>after</i> you perform the spell can you turn the page. The reverse side explains what it does."<br/>
<br/>
"What's the point in that?" Miko says.<br/>
<br/>
"I think it's a kind of test," you say. "You have to show you've got the guts to actually perform the spell before it will tell you what it's done."<br/>
<br/>
Miko pales. "Diabolical, isn't it?" Kali says. "Continue."<br/>
<br/>
"After the blank page is a page containing a lot of warnings. It tells you a little bit about the book, that it can make masks and disguises. It tells you to be careful, and not to perform the spells with a light heart."<br/>
<br/>
"As if a thing like that could have a conscience," Miko snorts.<br/>
<br/>
"After that is the first spell," you say. "It makes a mask. If you put the mask on someone, it copies them."<br/>
<br/>
"And if you put the mask on, then <i>you</i> will look like that person?" Miko asks.<br/>
<br/>
"No, the mask has to be sealed first," you say. "That's the second spell. If you put the mask onto another person, even yourself, before sealing it, then the second image will merge with the first, creating a new one. That way you can make new faces instead of just imitating real people."<br/>
<br/>
"Clever," Kali says. "But the second spell?"<br/>
<br/>
"It makes a kind of paste that seals up the inside of the mask. Then you can put it on and you'll turn into that person."<br/>
<br/>
"Including memories?" Miko asks.<br/>
<br/>
"No. That's the third spell," you say. Miko groans. "You have to <i>assemble</i> a full disguise. The third spell makes a kind of metal strip. Put it onto someone's forehead, and you'll copy their memories and personality. You can put <i>that</i> on without a mask, and you can walk around with them inside your head. You can put a mask on separately, though. That will make a full disguise. But the fourth spell will make a kind of glue so that you can put one of those bands inside a mask. If you put a blank band inside a blank mask, you can put it on someone and get their body and their mind at once. Then you can seal the whole thing and have a complete disguise."<br/>
<br/>
"And then?" Kali asks.<br/>
<br/>
You describe the spell that creates a golem, and the spell that turns a person into a golem, and the spell that puts a portable golem inside a mask. But it looks like Kali has stopped listening by then. "I begin to see a pattern," she says, "though it is incomplete."<br/>
<br/>
"Like I said, the pattern is putting the pieces together."<br/>
<br/>
"I mean I see the pattern in your own progression since acquiring Miko's <i>imago,</i>" Kali says. "It recapitulates the progression in the book. First, you acquired her <i>imago.</i> But there was no 'sealing'. Unless--" Her eyebrows suddenly arch over her frown. "You <i>kissed</i> Will the night before he changed," she says, turning to Miko.<br/>
<br/>
"To my lasting regret," Miko growls.<br/>
<br/>
"You played dress up with him," Kali snaps. "Your feelings are actually ambivalent." Miko makes a choking noise, but Kali continues. "We've been assuming that the kiss was what implanted the <i>imago,</i> but possibly it caused this 'seal' to form, and <i>that's</i> what caused the <i>imago</i> to manifest during the night."<br/>
<br/>
Miko stares at her. "Then what did I do to--"<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, anything," Kali says with a wave of her hand. "You're a catalytic agent. Possibly Will picked up your <i>imago</i> at the airport. You're a very forward girl. You sealed it with a kiss." She taps her finger on the arm of the sofa as Miko glares at her. "But you have to learn how to do it consciously and deliberately, Will," she continues, fixing her eyes on you. "To change you back, even if not as part of your training."<br/>
<br/>
"Okay, so I picked up Miko's <i>imago,</i> got it sealed, and then picked up her memories after reading that story? And after--" You glance uneasily at Miko, and shut your mouth. "But I don't have all of them."<br/>
<br/>
"Again, a great deal of Miko is floating in the air," Kali says, seemingly as reticent as you about admitting to snooping in Miko's room. "Like a piece of grit at the center of a pearl, that story I showed you may have been a point around which some of Miko's mental matter spun and settled within you."<br/>
<br/>
"Honestly, it sounds like you're improvising," Miko says to Kali. <br/>
<br/>
"Of course I'm improvising. All hypotheses are improvised from meager evidence. We will have to test and refine the hypothesis over time."<br/>
<br/>
"Even if this is how it worked," you protest, "the first spell also comes with instructions for how to take a mask off. That first day, I tried using it to take a mask off, and nothing happened."<br/>
<br/>
"You're not wearing a mask," she says. You make a face. "I know, that wasn't a helpful remark, except insofar as it turns us from a false trail. The fact is, I suspect, that <i>you</i> are the mask, child, and you cannot remove yourself."<br/>
<br/>
"I can remove him," Miko mutters.<br/>
<br/>
"I would have to see the sigil in order to see how it works, though," Kali says, lightly stroking her chin with her forefinger. "I would have to speak to Charles about examining the book--"<br/>
<br/>
"I can draw it for you," you say. Both women look startled. "Sure. I can practically see all the sigils in front of me.<br/>
<br/>
"Then please do so," Kali says after a pause.<br/>
<br/>
You oblige, and far more quickly than you thought it would take you. Kali holds the finished page gingerly. "If he can draw <i>all</i> those things," Miko starts to say.<br/>
<br/>
"Hush. He doesn't want to and certainly doesn't need to. Isn't that right, Will?"<br/>
<br/>
You nod your head fervently, then change it to a shake. "I mean, right, I don't want to."<br/>
<br/>
"Yes. I will study this tonight. I hope to have a richer hypothesis in the morning. Good night, you both," she says in a distracted voice, and goes to her office.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Later that night you're feeling restless, and thinking of Joe and Frank, and that causes you to remember those composition books. You wonder if there's one about them. It might be fun to read.<br/>
<br/>
Softly you pad down the hall to Kali's office. Before you knock, though, you hear her voice. Apparently she is talking on the phone.<br/>
<br/>
"It was not an accident, Charles," you hear her saying. "We've been trying to avoid that conclusion, but I think we have to face up to it. There is a <i>design</i> being executed." She is silent for a moment, and guiltily you edge closer to listen. "He will need to meet Margaret," Kali says when she speaks again. "And since she is in ill health, the sooner the better."<br/>
<br/>
You withdraw. It's wrong to eavesdrop. Kali, you hope will tell you about this conversation in her own time. But you could press it.</span></div></div>


path: 11221111111222112211112221212112112121122121211212111212211212
author_id: seuzz
title: Faces Forward
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span><i>No,</i> you decide after you're back in your bedroom. Kali spoke of trust, and you should trust that she will tell you what you need to know when she deems you need to know it. You put out the lights and try to sleep.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
"I want to supervise your meditation again tonight," Kali tells you after dinner. "I studied the sigil you made, and wish to direct you."<br/>
<br/>
It is just you and Kali--Miko has gone to see a movie--as you assume the usual position in the floor and close your eyes. The moon appears even before you can let yourself "wander." "Do you see your <i>ousiarch,</i> child?" Kali asks. You nod. "Good. Now think of that sigil." You blink behind your closed lids, and concentrate. Nothing happens. "Relax," Kali coaxes you. "It's within you. Let it come."<br/>
<br/>
You take a deep breath and let your mind settle back. The image of the moon wavers, as though it's a reflection in a pool that has been disturbed. The sigil forms and comes into focus, its ring perfectly encompassing the lunar disc, whose shadows and features resolve into the sigil's own elements. "Cup your hands before you, child," Kali says. "<i>Hold</i> the vision in your palms."<br/>
<br/>
You oblige. Your hands seem to grow heavy, and something warm settles into them. "Very good, Will," Kali says. "Now think of Miko. I sent her away, so you will have to find her within you."<br/>
<br/>
Unbidden, you suck in a sharp breath and have to fight not to open your eyes. You can feel Miko as a palpable presence, pressing in close to you. It feels like razor blades slicing down your face. She is all about you. And then her face appears within the sigil. It is the moon, and the sigil, and Miko's face, all bound together, like a cloud that can take on different appearances without changing.<br/>
<br/>
"You are doing very well, Will," Kali says softly. "You can open your eyes."<br/>
<br/>
Your lids are heavy as you lift them, and then they spring up. The vision is still before you, but it is floating in the palms of your cupped hands. Again, it wavers for a moment, but you find yourself able to focus it. "Do you see it?" you ask Kali.<br/>
<br/>
"Of course, child. Anyone could see it. Well done." You glance up, to see her eyes glinting with pride. "This is your first great step. I remember when Frank first raised the mailed glove of Malacandra, exactly where you are now sitting. Hold, don't lose your concentration," she cautions as the image wavers again. "Good. Now, which of sigils do you see there?"<br/>
<br/>
"The first one, of course. Now, wait, there's--" You stare. "Three of them are there, the first three. Overlaid."<br/>
<br/>
"No, blended. Now the fourth one, child, the one that binds them all together."<br/>
<br/>
You take a deep breath, but not from exertion. It is like power surging into you as the fourth sigil appears. They melt into each other. And then there is only Miko's face, firm and clear.<br/>
<br/>
"Now, thrust it from you!" Kali cries. "Thrust it!"<br/>
<br/>
A great tremble passes through you, a strain of yourself pressing yourself. Her face is like an immobile wall. But you push--<br/>
<br/>
And then something twists--<br/>
<br/>
And the vision seems to shoot off a great distance until it is but a single point at the edge of the universe. Then it winks out.<br/>
<br/>
You fall back in a faint.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You wake to find the moon looming over you, burning intensely, and its touch is like the fire of frost. Your teeth chatter, and a flush of fever passes through you. And then a warm hand brushes over your eyes, and the sight vanishes.<br/>
<br/>
You're staring at the ceiling. "And you're back with us." It's Kali's voice, sounding amused. You feel her hand in yours, and she raises you up. "Your hair is a mess, child."<br/>
<br/>
You rake your fingers through it, and find it much thicker and shorter than-- You look down at your hand. It's your own, your original. You look around to find Kali smiling. "Shall I fetch a mirror," she asks.<br/>
<br/>
But you run into the bathroom. Your face, the queerly reversed one, stares back with an open mouth. Part of you is overjoyed to see it back again; but part of you also winces over the bristly whiskers on your chin and upper lip.<br/>
<br/>
"How did you do it?" you ask Kali when you're back in the living room.<br/>
<br/>
"I? I did nothing. You did it yourself. Oh, I suppose I <i>guided</i> you in some small way." Her smile can't fully disguise the smug look of satisfaction in her eyes. "But it was a matter of bringing your own powers into focus. It's my job," she adds with a light shrug.<br/>
<br/>
"Can you explain it to me?"<br/>
<br/>
"I must, as part of your training. You'll have to practice it, in fact."<br/>
<br/>
"Practice? How often am I going to have to change out of a fake face?"<br/>
<br/>
"I've no idea. But you had better be good at it. Your life may depend upon it in the future. Come."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
The explanation was quite long and technical, and she worked you hard while giving it, for to explain the technical points she had to force you to summon up images of those sigils again.<br/>
<br/>
"There is <i>your</i> face," she says, as you both stare at the apparition in your cupped hands. "You have Miko's too. But you must find her and bring her-- There!" The face in your cupped hands shifts--wrenches, almost--and now Miko's visage rests there. "They are both now part of your fabric. In fact, neither is more 'natural' to you. Neither is your 'true form', if you will. You can choose one, or the other, as you desire."<br/>
<br/>
You're briefly swept by a vertiginous feeling of loss, but you brush it aside firmly as something you can dwell over later. At the moment, you are far too fascinated by what Kali is showing you.<br/>
<br/>
"Those forms are bound within sigils, and the sigils themselves are the <i>substantia</i> of the <i>imago</i>. You see?" She spreads her fingers around the image, pointing without touching it. "As a picture on a monitor is made of pixels, this is made of the elementary sigils contained in the basic sigil. It manifests in you, and you can choose which one manifests, shifting between them. All I did was get you to <i>see</i> your appearance as Miko as a sigil, and get you to see that you could manipulate it."<br/>
<br/>
"But you had me merge them."<br/>
<br/>
"Yes, because you had acquired them in bits and pieces, as you assemble a mask. I could have shown you how to remove each singly--your image as Miko, or the fragments of her mind you had picked up. But it was best to unify them, so you could do it at once."<br/>
<br/>
You mull this. Somehow the knowledge feels very natural, as natural as knowing how to walk. Which means you don't know how to do it, exactly, so much as you feel you should be able to do it without thinking. "That is a good analogy," Kali says when you say this. "Though, like walking, it is something that will awkward until your 'muscles' become used to it."<br/>
<br/>
"But why did I change back to <i>this</i> form after I shifted out of Miko's? I mean, without trying? I thought you said neither form is my natural form anymore."<br/>
<br/>
Her smile is tight, and her eyes drop briefly. "You didn't," she says. "Sulva brought you back. Did you see him before you woke?"<br/>
<br/>
You remember the vision of the moon, and nod.<br/>
<br/>
"Yes. He is your <i>ousiarch,</i> and as long as you bind yourself tightly to him, he can catch you if you go seriously askew with your powers. It can be a close-run thing, though, and you mustn't rely thoughtlessly on him. You should have had your own <i>imago</i> at the ready for the switch."<br/>
<br/>
"So why didn't you have me prepare?"<br/>
<br/>
Her eyes tighten. "I didn't realize it was necessary. I was working on a hypothesis, and the experiment nearly blew up in my face."<br/>
<br/>
"Jeez-- I mean-- <i>Fuck!</i>"<br/>
<br/>
"You spent a lot time with the boys," she murmurs.<br/>
<br/>
"So what was I--?"<br/>
<br/>
"I said you have no true form. In a sense, you do, but it's a blank. Will, I am sorry to tell you this, but you are still a golem. And you always will be. That's what the <i>Libra</i> did to you. It stripped your <i>substantia</i> of your <i>imago</i> and set it back upon you in this fashion." She smiles wryly. "It had a fifty-fifty chance of aligning it correctly, and guessed wrong, putting you left to right. I suppose that's what happened. It's only another hypothesis on my part."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
She sends you to bed, for you are thoroughly wrung out.<br/>
<br/>
You sleep, and you dream. You are burning under the moon. It is a great eye, cold and blind. You see your face reflected in it, but it is a blank.<br/>
<br/>
But it isn't the moon. It is a great bowl, and its circle is its rim, and you are gazing straight down into it. No, you are <i>inside</i> the bowl, and you are gazing up out of it. You are in a great cauldron, burning over a fire, gazing up and out. The face that gazes down is not your own, though it is blank like your own. You stare at each other passively.<br/>
<br/>
You scribble the dream out when you wake, and show it to Kali the next morning, for you wake early, still feeling like you're burning with a fever, and rise before she and Miko leave for work. "Is it important," you ask.<br/>
<br/>
"Yes, but not immediately so," she says. "Likely it will be a recurring dream. Let it not prey upon you."<br/>
<br/>
Miko comes into the kitchen, her purse at her shoulder. "Ready when you are, Kali." She only glances at you. "And you can stay out of my clothes now, even if you're into that kind of thing."<br/>
<br/>
<i>Oh, but why should you?</i> you resentfully think when they're gone. You're sick of the apartment, and you can go out looking like her if you want, and come back and change without her knowing.</span></div></div>


path: 112211111112221122111122212121121121211221212112121112122112122
author_id: seuzz
title: The Hunter and the Hunted
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>It's just her <i>style,</i> you tell yourself, and go back to bed, where you doze fitfully for another hour or so.<br/>
<br/>
It's ten o'clock--close to your regular wake-up time--when you drag yourself from the bedroom and into the shower, where you massage yourself all over. It's been a long time since you've been able to relieve your adolescent tensions, and your cock springs swiftly to life. You groan as you squeeze it, but it feels very wrong to do anything about it while under Kali's roof. But one of these nights you <i>are</i> going to suffer an embarrassing emission, and Miko will never let you hear the end of it, you're sure.<br/>
<br/>
You feel ragged and baulked as you exit the shower, to find-- "Oh, fuck!" Towels are in the wash. You wipe away as much moisture as you can before hopping out of the bathroom to scamper to the linen closet. Your path takes you through the living room.<br/>
<br/>
You're halfway across when you hear a scratching at the front door and see the knob turn. <i>Oh, God! Kali or Miko </i>would<i> choose this precise moment to return early.</i> You drop down onto your haunches, just behind the sofa, with only your head sticking up. You'll have to ask them to stay out in the hall until you can get that towel. But if it's Miko, she'll probably just grin and insist that you make the run--<br/>
<br/>
The door opens. It isn't Miko. Nor is it Kali.<br/>
<br/>
It's a man, and he is so filthy and disheveled there is no telling how old he is. His cheeks are ashen and puffy and bristle with several days' growth of beard. His long, lank hair, which mixes dark brown with streaks of grey, trails down to his jaw, and it looks like it hasn't been washed in weeks. He wears a stained, wrinkled sports jacket that looks several decades old, and a button-down shirt that maybe was once fire-engine red, but is now the color of a white shirt that's been accidentally washed in a load with a red handkerchief. His lips are thick, and even at this distance you can see they are chapped. <br/>
<br/>
You've seen homeless guys by the bus depot that look better kempt.<br/>
<br/>
He pushes the door open but stays on the threshold, his eyes darting about the room. He seems to be looking very carefully for something, and cataloging everything he sees. You can only stare and suppress a gasp as his eyes rake past you. But he seems not to notice you.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Not notice you.</i> Kali had said you could render yourself inconspicuous. You hope you've managed to accomplish that now; you'll have to get her to figure out how you do it.<br/>
<br/>
After a long minute, the intruder takes two steps into the room and closes the door behind him. There's a small table by the door, with a vase. He picks it up and glances at the bottom of it. Clearly he's a thief, and you wonder how he managed to get into the building. You glance at the hall leading to Kali's office, wondering if you can get into it and lock the door if this guy goes into another room.<br/>
<br/>
Your head barely moves, but the intruder jerks his head and stares in your direction, eyes boring holes into ... your cheek? He's not looking you in the eyes, unless there's something wrong with his vision. He sniffs, and his upper lip curls, showing yellowed teeth.<br/>
<br/>
From his jacket pocket he swiftly pulls out the biggest and scariest knife you've ever seen. He holds it across his chest, and begins to scan the room again, much more carefully than before.<br/>
<br/>
He takes some careful steps to the side, his head darting about this way and that. He continues to sniff--a loud hissing sound, actually, since he's got his teeth bared. And then he begins to mutter to himself.<br/>
<br/>
You have to clench your bowels. He's not just a thief or a homeless man. He's got to be a lunatic off his meds. If he catches you, Kali and Miko will return to find the newest Stellae gutted like a fish.<br/>
<br/>
Miko. Her sword is in the bedroom. That would easily trump a knife.<br/>
<br/>
You shift on the balls of your feet, and it seems to draw his attention, for his eyes dart in your direction, and his smile widens and his eyes gleam. His mutters and whispers become more frantic. Those voices in his head must be eager for blood. He steps lightly over, and in six paces cuts you off from the hall leading to the bedrooms.<br/>
<br/>
Maybe he can't see you, but you doubt he can't feel you, and if he comes this way he'll trip right over you. There's a small decorative table behind the sofa, and you slide under it, trying to tuck yourself in as far as possible.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Tip tap tip tap.</i> His feet, shod in ancient black dress shoes, appear right next to you. You can hear his words now, too. "Fishy fishy in the sea, fishy come and talk to me. The maelstrom sings, the abyss calls, fishy dreams 'neath coral walls. Fishy fishy, are you near? Fishy has no ears to hear. Ride the current, ride the wave, watery cradle, watery grave. Fishy fishy, come with me, to frying pan from out the sea."<br/>
<br/>
He continues to chant, madder and madder as his voice grows more insistent. His feet shift, and he tiptoes away. But you don't dare peek out. You hear a scraping sound, and a loud clatter as something hard hits the floor. It bounces before coming to a rest: Joe's mask. The madman must have taken that African doodad off the wall. Probably it reminded him of his own personal demon. He drops to his knee briefly to pick up Joe's mask.<br/>
<br/>
The mask.<br/>
<br/>
You glance down at your palm. Masks knock people out. You have the power of the masks in your hand. If you can get your hands on him--<br/>
<br/>
You concentrate, trying to summon up the image of the sigil. It's hard, with your heart hammering and your eye jerking spasmodically over to the ankles of the intruder. But you start with the moon, and will yourself into shutting out the sights and sounds of the house. It seems to appear before you, and its dark spots arrange themselves into sigils. Your palm grows warm.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Tip tap tip tap.</i> The shoes are again directly in front of you. "Fishy fishy makes a splash, tails wave and scales flash."<br/>
<br/>
You look at his shoes. Another idea forms.<br/>
<br/>
Delicately you pick up the trailing lace of one shoe, and the trailing lace of the other. If you can tie them together without his noticing, and he trips, maybe you can scramble out the front door before he can recover himself.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Chunk!</i> Your head whips: The knife blade, penetrating an inch of wood, has plunged down only centimeters from your bare shoulder.<br/>
<br/>
A stream of piss shoots out your willy.<br/>
<br/>
"Ha!" The madman drops to his knees, his face only inches away. His mouth splits in a rictus, and his eyes, wide with glittering lunacy, stare full into yours.<br/>
<br/>
Without thinking, you slam your open palm onto his face; in your minds' eye, the sigil blazes to life.<br/>
<br/>
He falls back, arms and legs flailing; you scramble after, pushing him down and sitting on his chest, keeping your open palm locked onto his face. Your hand feels very hot. His mouth gasps and works. Terror wells up inside you. What if you kill him? What if you melt his face off? You don't even understand this power. He's not falling unconscious. You summon the third sigil, and his back arches. Then the fourth sigil, binding the other two together. He collapses, but your hand seems stuck to his face, and won't come away no matter how strongly you pull. The sigils seem to burn into your mind, and you hear yourself gasping and crying. <i>You only meant to knock him out, but you can feel it, the man's degenerate body and rotted mind burning into your own, etching themselves into your very being.</i> You twist your head back and forth, trying to throw it off, but it's like a hot brand, and it closes around yours, searing itself--<br/>
<br/>
You fall back with a cry, shaking and sweating all over. The man is unconscious. You look fearfully at your palm, just in time to see the fading sigil. You watch with horror-struck trepidation, waiting to see your hand wither into a simulacrum of the stranger's. But nothing happens.<br/>
<br/>
After a minute of dumb silence you scramble to your feet and run back into your bedroom, where you snatch your trousers off the floor. You then scamper back across the living room, pausing only long enough to grab up the house cell phone from the coffee table. You're then out the door and running for the elevator banks.<br/>
<br/>
But that's stupid. If he comes after you, you'll get caught while waiting for the lift. You don't want to bang on the doors of anyone in the building; that'll just draw the madman to them. You should get the security guard from the lobby. Hell, call the cops. You yank open the door to the stairwell and bolt down it five steps at a time, landing hard each time.<br/>
<br/>
You have to slow up after three floors, because your ankles can't take it.<br/>
<br/>
You're on the fifth floor when you stop to catch your breath and pull your pants on. As you puff, you wonder if you <i>shouldn't</i> call the cops. They're bound to check out the apartment, and maybe Kali won't want that. Maybe you should call her first.<br/>
<br/>
But that'll take time, and the lunatic might get away, to menace and murder more people in the building.</span></div></div>


path: 1122111111122211221111222121211211212112212121121211121221121221
author_id: seuzz
title: A Cross Examination
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>You call Kali. If you can get through to her quickly, maybe you can get her permission to get the police out here before the lunatic regains consciousness.<br/>
<br/>
"Yes, Will?" she trills when she picks up.<br/>
<br/>
"Kali! A man broke into the apartment! A homeless lunatic or something! I knocked him out, but do I need to call the police?"<br/>
<br/>
"Will, say that again," she says.<br/>
<br/>
"A man broke into the apartment. He's crazy. I knocked him out and got away, but I'm going downstairs to get the security people. Do you want me to get them? Because I thought maybe you don't want the cops inside your apartment."<br/>
<br/>
"No one wants the police inside their home, Will, but better them than a lunatic. Are you okay?"<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, but only because my invisibility trick kicked in."<br/>
<br/>
"Aren't you wearing your necklace?"<br/>
<br/>
"I'd just got out of the shower. I didn't have any clothes on."<br/>
<br/>
"Well, they might arrest <i>you</i> if you're naked. But I don't understand how a--What makes you think he was crazy?"<br/>
<br/>
"He was dressed and stank like a homeless man, and he was waving a knife around and muttering to himself."<br/>
<br/>
"What was he muttering?"<br/>
<br/>
"Creepy nursery rhymes about gutting fish. Kali, are you alright? You suddenly sound--"<br/>
<br/>
"I'm fine, child. Have you got the security guard yet?"<br/>
<br/>
"No." You've just put your hand on the stairwell door.<br/>
<br/>
"Then I want you to go back upstairs and find the gentleman, and apologize to him and entertain him until Miko and I return. Please don't tell him he smells."<br/>
<br/>
"You want me to <i>what?</i>"<br/>
<br/>
"You heard me. His name is Richard Bredon, and he is one of your colleagues. I wasn't expecting him until tomorrow, or I would have warned you about each other."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
The hand shoots through the crack between the elevator doors almost before they have started to open. It grasps you by the neck and thrusts you back against the elevator wall. The lunatic flashes the knife before your eyes.<br/>
<br/>
"Are you Richard Bredon?" Your voice is a strangled squeak.<br/>
<br/>
His eyes glint. "Who wants to know?"<br/>
<br/>
"Will Prescott?"<br/>
<br/>
"You asking me permission to be Will Prescott?"<br/>
<br/>
"You can call Kali. Please call Kali."<br/>
<br/>
His fingers shift along the side of your neck. "I press here, and you'll die in a way that will mystify every coroner in the world."<br/>
<br/>
"I'm sorry," you squeak. "Kali told me to apologize, and--"<br/>
<br/>
"Well, why didn't you say so, squirt?" He lowers the knife. "Instead of wasting my time out here. Might've had to kill witnesses if they'd caught us like this. Come on back to the house."<br/>
<br/>
Your knees almost give out, but you manage to totter after him.<br/>
<br/>
"Hold it." He stops you in the doorway, and his head moves fractionally. "Okay, come in. Close the door. Get a mop. Wanna drink?"<br/>
<br/>
"A mop?"<br/>
<br/>
"You pissed yourself by the sofa. Kali won't like the smell." You restrain yourself from mentioning <i>his</i> smell. "What's your poison?"<br/>
<br/>
"Uh ... Coke? And I don't know where--"<br/>
<br/>
"Try the laundry room, that's where people usually keep mops. Check the cabinets for special stuff, too."<br/>
<br/>
"Like detergent?" you call back as you duck into the laundry room.<br/>
<br/>
"Like tequila. Rum. Scotch. Gin. Kali's a prim little choir girl, and I'm a day early. I wouldn't look for it in her kitchen. Not yet."<br/>
<br/>
"Holy ... Spirits! It's like a liquor store in here!"<br/>
<br/>
"She's hospitable. So'm I. Pick whatever you want."<br/>
<br/>
"I'll stick to Coke, if--"<br/>
<br/>
"Faugh. How old did you say you are?"<br/>
<br/>
"Seventeen."<br/>
<br/>
"Trick question. You didn't <i>say.</i> Seventeen? You're old enough to die without it being a tragedy, squirt. You're old enough to drink."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
"<i>Pffwaugghhhkkkk!</i>" A cloud of alcoholic vapor explodes out your chest and into the room. The stuff is raw, burning. You hack and cough, long and loudly. <br/>
<br/>
Bredon ignores you, and to his lips lifts a second glass of the most evil spirit you think could be poured into a shot glass without melting it. His eyes crinkle up with pleasure, and he gulps it down thirstily. "It was a long drive," he says, and pours a third shot. "Long and dry and thirsty. You ever driven across Utah? Nevada?"<br/>
<br/>
"No sir."<br/>
<br/>
"Don't call me 'sir'. Just 'Rick'. Well, squirt, if you never have the pleasure and wanna know what it's like, just put an iron skillet over a medium flame, coat the bottom with kosher salt, and fall asleep with your face in it." He raises the third glass. He'd knocked back the first, guzzled noisily at the second, but this third one he sniffs and breathes in, as though it's an expensive wine and not something that was rejected as paint thinner. A beatific expression spreads over his face. His nostrils flare, and it seems to you that the level of liquid in the glass falls by a small but measurable amount.<br/>
<br/>
"I'm not much of a drinker," you say, feeling embarrassed by your performance with your own glass.<br/>
<br/>
"This stuff is an acquired taste." <br/>
<br/>
"You like it?"<br/>
<br/>
"It's liquefied garbage. But I'm putting down a layer. I'll cover it up with better stuff later." He knocks the shot glass back, and leaves his head hanging back as he follows it by gulping down great draughts of air. He leans back in his chair, his eyes closed. "So you're the new squirt."<br/>
<br/>
"Yes sir. Rick. Um, could you please not call me--"<br/>
<br/>
"Scuttlebutt says you're another Sulva."<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah." And then you realize he'd said "another." "What do you mean by <i>another</i> Sulva?"<br/>
<br/>
"There's only ten planets, squirt, we gotta share."<br/>
<br/>
"But Kali said I was the only Sulva in the Stellae. That they're rare." Something in his manner puzzles you, and it's not the way he keeps calling you "squirt." "Are <i>you</i> a Sulvae?"<br/>
<br/>
"Nah. Malacandra, Eldibria. And rare don't mean unique. What'd she tell you about Sulvae?"<br/>
<br/>
"That they're hard to find."<br/>
<br/>
His lips twitch and he lifts a single eyelid. "How long you been in training?"<br/>
<br/>
"Less than a week."<br/>
<br/>
"What can you do?"<br/>
<br/>
"You mean, like, Sulva powers?"<br/>
<br/>
"Can you play the piano or find the reciprocal of a fraction?"<br/>
<br/>
"Uh, no to the first, and I'd have to remember what--"<br/>
<br/>
"I'm asking about 'Sulva powers'," he says, putting heavy sarcasm on the last two words. <br/>
<br/>
You redden. This isn't as bad as Kali's questioning, but it is almost as unnerving. "Well, I'm not sure yet. That's what training is for, isn't it?"<br/>
<br/>
"So what have you already found? You ain't ashamed, are you? Like it's a trick you gotta take your clothes off for?"<br/>
<br/>
You redden a little more. "Well, I don't know how I do it, but apparently I can hide in plain sight. Kali says it's like I can make people not notice me, even when I'm in front of them. I think I must've--"<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, you did. But do you gotta take your clothes off to use it, like the Invisible Man?"<br/>
<br/>
"I wasn't-- I'd just got out of the shower. There weren't any towels and I was looking for one when--"<br/>
<br/>
"Ah! Well, there's your trouble. That shower. I wouldna found you otherwise. Maybe wouldna even suspected you were there." He sniffs. "I'm about ready for another drink. You?"<br/>
<br/>
"Of what?"<br/>
<br/>
"Gin, this time. Yeah, it's a neat trick you got, squirt."<br/>
<br/>
"How did you find me? Watching you, I thought you were a-- Well, I thought you were a crazy homeless man who'd broken in."<br/>
<br/>
He smiles mirthlessly as he pours a shot for you and him both. "I said, the water from your shower. Even before you pissed yourself. I could smell it, smell you, smell <i>something</i> in the room. I don't mean literally 'smell'." He sniffs at the shoulder of his jacket and makes a face. "I can hardly smell anything. But I knew there was something off, and I don't like finding 'off' things in a friend's apartment. So I went lookin'. Just a matter of finding the layer you were swimming in." He shrugs.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Showers. It seems like a diplomatic way to make a hint.</i> "Would you like a shower, get cleaned up after your drive?"<br/>
<br/>
He flicks you an amused glance. "I <i>hate</i> the stuff, squirt."<br/>
<br/>
"What stuff?"<br/>
<br/>
"Water. <i>Hate it.</i> What else you got goin' in your favor?" He drinks very slowly, so slowly it might be a tumbler rather than a shot glass he's sucking back. He sets it back with a satisfied "Ah!" and looks over into the living room. "The kid was one of her favorites," he says.<br/>
<br/>
You glance back into the living room, and spot Joe's mask sitting on that table. "Joe, you mean? You know about those things?"<br/>
<br/>
"I put the kid and the cadet on their trail."<br/>
<br/>
"Oh. Well, I brought that thing out with me. I used it while traveling, as a temporary disguise, and gave it to Kali when I got here."<br/>
<br/>
"She had you putting it on and taking it off?"<br/>
<br/>
"No. She's taught me how to meditate--"<br/>
<br/>
"Baby's first steps."<br/>
<br/>
"Look, I don't know how much to tell you--"<br/>
<br/>
"You can tell me anything, squirt, and you probably will without realizing it. It's a lot of fun for <i>me,</i> figuring it all out while you're trying to hide it, but you'll like it better if you just take your clothes off again and lemme have a direct look at you."<br/>
<br/>
He's one of your new colleagues, but you feel a responsibility to Kali to not disclose anything further about yourself without her permission. Besides, this guy might be like Miko, and have settled ideas about what should be done with someone who is "entangled" with the <i>Libra.</i></span></div></div>


path: 11221111111222112211112221212112112121122121211212111212211212211
author_id: seuzz
title: What to Do With the Child?
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>"I don't know how much you know about me, Rick--"<br/>
<br/>
"Assume I'm an ignorant son of a gun. I don't get bored listenin' to stuff I already know."<br/>
<br/>
You spare no details, and Rick hides his reactions behind a blank and slightly bored veneer. When you finish, he finally has a reaction, though it's a small one: a grunt. "She mighta called me last night and told me to turn around. I was in Vegas, too, and coulda had some fun. But-- Lemme see your hands, squirt. Yeah," he says after giving your palms a cursory glance. "Kali needs to have more confidence in herself." <br/>
<br/>
"She asked you to come out? On account of me?"<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah. You're a puzzle, and I'm good with puzzles. So. You can turn yourself into other people. Miko Toyotomi for one, and me, for another. You're gonna find that a frustration when neither of us is around."<br/>
<br/>
"Turn myself into you?" you echo, and your voice is furtive.<br/>
<br/>
"How did you get away from me when I caught you earlier? And don't pretend you didn't know exactly what you were doing when you did it."<br/>
<br/>
"I was just trying to knock you out," you insist. "At least, that's what happens when you put a mask on someone, it knocks them out. I thought if I could just get my hand onto and off you, before-- I didn't want to <i>copy</i> you."<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, the kid's a lot cuter than me. That's a temptation in there." He glances back into the living room, and rubs his eye. "When you get to my age and state of health, you gotta <i>pay</i> for--"<br/>
<br/>
You put your hands over your ears, and then drop them when you realize how crude and cruel it looks. Rick scratches deeply at his scalp. "But Miko's here. Kali likes the entertainment." He pours another shot--this time of Scotch--but just regards it. "Be fun if you were looking like me when she got here."<br/>
<br/>
You struggle to find a diplomatic way of avoiding the suggestion. "But I'd have your mind, too, and I don't want to snoop."<br/>
<br/>
He shrugs. "You might as well get to know me. We're gonna be spending a <i>lot</i> of time together when your apprenticeship starts."<br/>
<br/>
"We are?" You hope the dread you feel doesn't come through your voice.<br/>
<br/>
"Uh huh. You and me are a natural fit. I'm a snoop, and you're gonna be a <i>spy.</i>"<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You don't ask anymore, and he doesn't expand. After a few minutes of silence, he rises and pads back into Kali's office, saying he's got emails to check. You stay in the kitchen, trying not to think about what he's said.<br/>
<br/>
So you're still there when Kali and Miko return. "In the kitchen," you call in answer to your name.<br/>
<br/>
Kali enters, and her eyes instantly fall onto the bottles and the glasses. She looks at you gravely. "When I told you to entertain him, I wasn't expecting <i>you</i> to partake as well."<br/>
<br/>
"I only had one shot, Kali, and most of it wound up--" You cough theatrically. "He's in your office."<br/>
<br/>
"And what do you think of him?"<br/>
<br/>
"He's interesting."<br/>
<br/>
"Indeed."<br/>
<br/>
"I told him everything about me, up through and including last night."<br/>
<br/>
"Of course you did. Did you tell him, or did he deduce it all and tell <i>you?</i>"<br/>
<br/>
"Who <i>is</i> he?"<br/>
<br/>
"He's our investigator. When someone or something needs to be found, some mystery needs to be solved--"<br/>
<br/>
"He said we were going to be working together. A lot. He said I was going to be a <i>spy.</i>" You blurt it all out, but it still comes with a whine.<br/>
<br/>
"That's for <i>Charles</i> to decide."<br/>
<br/>
"Do I get a vote?"<br/>
<br/>
She smiles. "Charles won't put you anyplace that will make you unhappy, and anyplace he puts you, you <i>will</i> be happy."<br/>
<br/>
You glance past her. "Did Charles put <i>him</i> where he is? He doesn't seem happy."<br/>
<br/>
"That's his manner, and happiness is relative. He'd be <i>miserable</i> anyplace else, and he does like what he does."<br/>
<br/>
"Then how come he--?" You glance meaningfully at the bottles and shot glasses.<br/>
<br/>
"He's an Eldibrian, child. Don't take surface appearances so seriously. Why don't you start fixing something for lunch? I'll rescue him from Miko." She leaves, and you hear five, six footsteps and then-- "My <i>table</i>!"<br/>
<br/>
She must've picked up Joe's mask, and found that huge knife hole beneath it.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You pull out all the leftovers from the kitchen and line them up buffet style. Rick slouches at the table; you notice that Miko takes a plate to him before getting one for herself. He pushes the food around with a fork, turning it over and over and taking only a few bites. "So you got it all figured out, Kali," he says.<br/>
<br/>
"A great deal. But I am not certain, and I have apprehensions about continuing."<br/>
<br/>
"Continuing <i>what?</i> He got some more stuff he can do?"<br/>
<br/>
You're sitting right there with them, but since they insist on talking about you as though you aren't, you hold your tongue. You just keep eating and listening.<br/>
<br/>
"He is recapitulating the <i>Libra</i>'s structure, and there are some spells in there that should not be performed except under <i>extraordinarily</i> rare circumstances. If at all."<br/>
<br/>
Rick shrugs. "He can turn himself into other people and pull off mind melds. That's probably enough." He pushes his food around some more. "Meantime, he's got some other tricks you can work on, take apart. He probably wouldn't want to pull <i>everything</i> out of someone's head, not in every circumstance. And he said these spells are supposed to knock people out when he uses them. That's a useful trick by itself." He looks around. "You have a bell, Kali? This trick he has of--"<br/>
<br/>
"We gave him a necklace," Miko says, and shoves a spoonful of shepherd's pie into her mouth.<br/>
<br/>
Kali glances over at you, and does a slight double take. "Perhaps he isn't hungry."<br/>
<br/>
"Maybe he doesn't like me," Rick says. You flush with embarrassment.<br/>
<br/>
"I've made him as welcome as I think I can," Kali says. "But Miko--"<br/>
<br/>
"Why is it always my fault?"<br/>
<br/>
"Because it usually is. Though if Edward were here we'd never see the child again."<br/>
<br/>
"Speaking of the Jesuit, what's the last you heard on the cadet?" Rick asks.<br/>
<br/>
"Charles wants to send him to see Margaret, but money is tight," Kali says. "He won't let <i>me</i> pay for it either."<br/>
<br/>
"Who's Margaret?" you ask. "Are you talking about Frank?" Finally, a topic that isn't <i>you.</i><br/>
<br/>
"Why don't <i>you</i> go see Margaret?" Miko asks Kali. "Charles can't object to your packing Frank in your overnight case."<br/>
<br/>
"I have the child to work with."<br/>
<br/>
"Then what am I doing here?" Rick asks.<br/>
<br/>
"Would you tell me what you're talking about?" you demand.<br/>
<br/>
"Helping me, obviously," Kali says.<br/>
<br/>
"Sounds to me like you got the theory worked out," Rick says. "Practical applications are what's needed. Leave him with me and I'll run him on some obstacle courses."<br/>
<br/>
"He has studying to do, and I have to supervise," Kali says.<br/>
<br/>
"Miko can stay--"<br/>
<br/>
"You'd <i>like</i> that," Miko says sharply.<br/>
<br/>
"Between us, we got half your brain," Rick continues. "How long would the cadet be in England?"<br/>
<br/>
"A few weeks, probably," Kali says. "But--"<br/>
<br/>
"Then don't make it hard. The squirt'll keep till you get back. And with me and Miko--"<br/>
<br/>
"You'd like that," Miko says again.<br/>
<br/>
"--he could get a little seasoning, not be so squirrelly."<br/>
<br/>
"Or I could take him with me," Kali says with slight asperity. "I told Charles that Margaret needs to see him anyway--"<br/>
<br/>
You pick up your glass and set it down sharply on the table. The women jump and whirl their heads in your direction. Rick just looks up. "Would you please stop ignoring me?" you say. "I'm sitting right--! Oh. I did it again, didn't I?"<br/>
<br/>
Roses swell up in Miko's cheeks. "I gave you that necklace so--!"<br/>
<br/>
Rick raps the table with a knuckle. "So he's back. Didn't creep off, either, it sounds like. What were you asking, squirt?"<br/>
<br/>
"First, would you please stop calling me squirt?"<br/>
<br/>
"Whatever you say, squirt." He pours himself another drink.<br/>
<br/>
"Second, what are you talking about with Frank? Who's Margaret? Why does he have to--?"<br/>
<br/>
"Margaret Dillon is my old teacher," Kali says crisply. "She is also a nurse, of sorts. Those who have been deeply wounded find healing with her."<br/>
<br/>
"Is Frank in that bad of a shape?" you ask, feeling pale.<br/>
<br/>
"Sometimes she just talks people out of <i>thinking</i> they're in bad shape," Rick says. He slouches, and twists the glass around. "Sometimes she just drives them to drink."<br/>
<br/>
"Why do you think <i>I</i> have to see her," you ask Kali, worry turning to alarm.<br/>
<br/>
"<i>Everyone</i> has to see her eventually, child," Kali says. "It's nothing particular to do with you."<br/>
<br/>
<i>That's not what it sounded like she was saying the other night.</i><br/>
<br/>
"It's her or the Jesuit," Rick says. "Sometimes <i>he</i> drives people into driving over cliffs. How's Margaret feeling these days?"<br/>
<br/>
"I'm worried," Kali says. "We all are."<br/>
<br/>
"Maybe the squirt should see her, then, while he can. The cadet can tag along. Sounds like they'd like to see each other, and Margaret's easier to take when she has another as a distraction. Or he could stay with me and Miko--"<br/>
<br/>
"You'd <i>like</i> that!"<br/>
<br/>
"--and have some fun."<br/>
<br/>
Probably they won't give you a choice, but you can at least express a preference.</span></div></div>


path: 112211111112221122111122212121121121211221212112121112122112122111
author_id: seuzz
title: The Shark and the Eagle
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>"I'm sure you guys are going to do with me whatever you want," you say, "but if it's all the same to you--" They all turn, and you come real close to wishing yourself invisible again. "I'd like to see Frank, but I think I'd like to wait until he's better. And when I've got a little more of this 'seasoning' that Rick thinks I need."<br/>
<br/>
"You're right," says Rick.<br/>
<br/>
"That I should wait before--"<br/>
<br/>
"No, that we'll do whatever we want with you. Right now, for instance, I want you in the living room. Miko, you can clean up."<br/>
<br/>
"I'm not your--!"<br/>
<br/>
"Neither's Kali and neither's the squirt."<br/>
<br/>
"Clean up after yourself!"<br/>
<br/>
He shrugs. "If you don't mind my stink all over--"<br/>
<br/>
Miko picks up a plate and drops it with a loud clatter while glaring at him. And then she picks it up again and starts cleaning up. Loudly.<br/>
<br/>
You and Kali follow Rick. He walks with a bow-legged gait and collapses in a sprawl on the sofa. With a raised finger, he stops you in your tracks. He looks you up and down a few times, then rubs his eyes and looks you over again. With a grunt and a twirl of the finger he has you turn around a few times. "Take off your shirt." You oblige, and he goes through the entire rigmarole again. Then he has you take off your shoes. More turning. Your socks. More turning. This continues until you are entirely naked. He rubs his mouth thoughtfully. And then, with the same slow and elaborate production he has you put them all back on again.<br/>
<br/>
"What do you think?" Kali asks.<br/>
<br/>
"I think Miko's making too much noise," he says, and rubs his temple. "The squirt?" He leans forward and peers at you. "Oh, he's a mess. He needs sorting out. Each trick in its place with a quick way of doing it and doing it only. He got darned lucky with me this morning. If I'd been drinking he'd never have--" He rubs his face.<br/>
<br/>
"Okay, squirt. Sit. There." He points to the floor in front of him, and you drop. He holds out a dirty hand. "Put your palm in mine and think of the Moon."<br/>
<br/>
You rest your hand on his and close your eyes. The Moon appears--it is so easy now.<br/>
<br/>
And then it vanishes as you fall. With a soft <i>sploosh</i> you find yourself in water. There is no land in sight, and small waves lap at your neck. You are naked, and you dog paddle in place, turning this way and that, trying to keep your head above water.<br/>
<br/>
Your feet are suddenly very heavy, and you're dragged down. You gulp for air, but water fills your mouth and your lungs. You fight for breath--<br/>
<br/>
But you're not drowning. You are suspended beneath the sea. It is very light, but you can't see the surface, and you can't see the bottom. You can see nothing.<br/>
<br/>
Until a shadow appears. You rear back as an immense shark swims into view. It's a Great White, and its mouth gapes, disclosing rows of crooked teeth.<br/>
<br/>
It glides lazily around you, keeping a vast, blank, dark eye fixed on you. You twirl in place, keeping it before you. Its tail beats the water. <i>Is that Rick?</i><br/>
<br/>
It circles you, and to your alarm you see it is gradually drawing closer. You fight the thick water, trying to swim away, but the shark quickens its tail, veering around and cutting you off. You swim in the other direction, but again it swings its mighty tail, forcing you back in place while pulling closer.<br/>
<br/>
This is useless. You look for a place to hide, but you're trapped in a featureless void. But maybe if you get to the surface, where the moon is--<br/>
<br/>
You kick hard and raise your chin, searching for the surface. It seems lighter in one direction, and you thrust yourself desperately that way. You think you have almost made it when you look back and down.<br/>
<br/>
The shark is coming straight at you, its jaws gaping.<br/>
<br/>
You open your own mouth to scream, but only a thick moan comes out. The teeth clamp around your waist, and the most horrible pain you've ever felt shreds every nerve in your body.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
The living room reappears. Kali is wincing, and digs a delicate finger into her ear. Rick leans back with a sigh. "Well, that was quick and easy. Desperation is usually the mother of--"<br/>
<br/>
"What the fuck was that?" you yell.<br/>
<br/>
"Look, squirt, you've gotta hide, or it's gonna find you every time. Gonna hurt like heck, too. Now let's try again." He puts out his hand.<br/>
<br/>
"You mean I hafta--"<br/>
<br/>
"You think <i>that</i> hurt? Wait'll you're snooping around the Egyptology wing of some museum, and the bad guy sends <i>scarabs</i> after you. Now come on."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You try it three more times, with the same results. You're trembling hard by the fifth time he puts out his hand. "Gimme a hint, Rick," you plead. "I can't--"<br/>
<br/>
"You gotta find it yourself, squirt. It's in you someplace. A hole. A shadow. A blind spot where Bruce can't see you."<br/>
<br/>
"How come I can turn invisible when it's you and Kali and Miko <i>talking</i> about me, but not when it's a--"<br/>
<br/>
"The child has a point," Kali says. "It's not <i>fear</i> that's been setting these episodes off. It's embarrassment. Or mortification. Or some less visceral emotion. What have you been feeling, Will, when you've disappeared?"<br/>
<br/>
You settle back with a groan. "I dunno. I haven't been thinking when it happens." You slouch and try to remember the times you've managed to render yourself magically inconspicuous. "I think I just-- I just don't want people seeing me. Or I want them to forget about me."<br/>
<br/>
"Hard for them to do that when they're looking right at you," Rick observes.<br/>
<br/>
"Apparently I did it at lunch."<br/>
<br/>
"We had other things to talk about. But we were still talking about <i>you.</i>"<br/>
<br/>
"It wasn't a <i>hole,</i> Rick, it was a distraction," Kali says thoughtfully. "He made himself part of the scenery."<br/>
<br/>
"No, he found a <i>hole</i> in it," Rick grumbles.<br/>
<br/>
"No," exclaims Miko, who is until now has been sitting off silently to the side. "He uses the scenery itself as the distraction, the way a matador uses a cape."<br/>
<br/>
Rick puckers his cheeks thoughtfully, then leans forward to stare at you intensely. "Let's put you in the <i>clouds,</i> squirt," he says, and extends his hand again. "There's going to be an eagle, and you <i>don't</i> want him getting his talons into you."<br/>
<br/>
You shudder, but put your hand in his again.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You are floating in the air. No, you are flying, very fast, with the wind whipping your hair and limbs. But the sky is so vast, and the clouds--some thin and flat, some fat like cotton balls, and some towering like castles--are so big that you seem to hang motionless among them. The Moon, itself vaster than the clouds, hangs above you. <br/>
<br/>
Something swings past you, and you feel a brush like razors on your back. It's that eagle Rick warned you of. Its wings spread in a great arc, every feather thrown in sharp relief against the sky. Its eye is bright and cruel, and its beak curves like a scimitar. Its claws grip and release hungrily.<br/>
<br/>
There's no place to hide in the sky; the clouds are too distant. But Miko said you needed something to use as a distraction.<br/>
<br/>
The Moon. It is your ally.<br/>
<br/>
You reach for it, and though it remains where it hangs, and your arm is pitifully short, yet you seem to feel it in your grasp. You swing it around, and <i>aim</i> it at the eagle.<br/>
<br/>
It swoops past you again, but its talons are closed, and then it soars high. It wheels and dives, but it is now even farther from you. You keep turning the Moon toward it, trying to get it to fly into it. But it never does. And yet neither does it ever grow any closer to you. Gradually it moves off, and vanishes into a cloudbank. <br/>
<br/>
The scene shifts in an eye blink. You are under the sea again, and the shark is circling. The Moon is nowhere to be found. Briefly, you panic. But why can't you summon it?<br/>
<br/>
You draw the water slowly into your lungs and think of the Moon. And then you feel it in your hand. You twitch your arm, and suddenly the water is the color of the moonscape, and you are swimming within the shadows of its mountains and craters. The shark swims in and out of them, its motions directionless and purposeless.<br/>
<br/>
An invisible hand closes about yours and squeezes hard. The vision wavers and dissolves into Rick's unshaven face. His smile is mirthless as he grips your fist inside his. "Hold it," he says. "Hold it. Hold it. Where is it?"<br/>
<br/>
"It's in my hand," you say slowly.<br/>
<br/>
"Where are you going to put it?"<br/>
<br/>
<i>Where can you possibly put the Moon?</i><br/>
<br/>
Oh, but you don't have to <i>put</i> it anyplace. You just have to know where to find it. You remember what Miko said. "Toro," you tell Rick.<br/>
<br/>
"Good enough," he says, and releases you. <br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
"You're not stealing anything, squirt," Rick says. You're sitting in the parking lot of the liquor store. "You're gonna pick it up and bring it out to me. Then you're gonna go back in and leave two twenties on the counter. It only costs twenty-nine bucks a bottle, so you're actually overpaying."<br/>
<br/>
"But what if I get caught?"<br/>
<br/>
"You don't. That's the point."<br/>
<br/>
"Isn't there some other test we can try?"<br/>
<br/>
"Sure. We can go back to Kali's."<br/>
<br/>
"Then let's do that."<br/>
<br/>
"And you go into Miko's bedroom while she's there, and you bring me all her panties."<br/>
<br/>
"She'll kill me!"<br/>
<br/>
"You gotta have an incentive, squirt. If you could just turn this trick of yours on and off, you wouldn't be sitting here with me now."</span></div></div>


path: 1122111111122211221111222121211211212112212121121211121221121221111
author_id: seuzz
title: A First Robbery
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>Rick had wasted no time in putting you and your "cape" to the test. He picked you up after lunch, driving in from the cheap bungalow where he's been staying during his LA sojourn. He hadn't warned you what was afoot, and at first you'd just thought he was inviting you along on a liquor run.<br/>
<br/>
You try to keep the tremble out of your knees as you walk into the liquor store. Off to the left, behind a counter by the register a man is slouching, watching a portable TV. Bottles of cheap wine are lined up near his elbows: the bottles that Rick had told you would be there.<br/>
<br/>
Rick himself has come back in with you, but has wandered off down an aisle, leaving you alone to execute the challenge. <i>Pick up a bottle and carry it out without being stopped. Return and leave two twenties without being seen.</i><br/>
<br/>
<i>Toro,</i> you think to yourself, and twitch your hand. The Moon--a new Moon, practically invisible--appears there, feeling like the handle to a shield. You twist your wrist, and fling it about yourself. Without its altering in any way the scenery, you sense it covering you yourself and much of the store.<br/>
<br/>
Holding your breath you walk up to the counter. The man continues to stare at the TV. You stand for a moment before him, waiting for him to acknowledge your presence. He just stares off to the side. You pick up one of the target bottles and look at the label thoughtfully while watching him from out of the corner of your eye. He shifts a little in his seat, but his eye remain glued to the screen. "Excuse me," you say in a firm and pleasant voice.<br/>
<br/>
He just sits there, breathing through his open mouth.<br/>
<br/>
You turn and walk back the way you came. You pause at the door and glance back. The clerk is still motionless. You step toward the door--<br/>
<br/>
"Hey, whaddaya think you're doing?" a rough voice calls out.<br/>
<br/>
You turn: Another man is staring at you. He's much bigger than the clerk, and his fat stomach strains at his t-shirt. He is only half-turned toward you, for he has been stacking beer. But from his position you know he could see you approach and leave the register.<br/>
<br/>
You're gaping at him. <i>The Toro trick didn't hide you from him?</i><br/>
<br/>
"You gonna pay for that?" the man demands in a hard tone. He straightens up and takes a step toward you.<br/>
<br/>
You step back toward the door. You have no money on you, and no ID, and you're seriously underage anyway. You're supposed to get the bottle back to Rick, and you <i>practically</i> pulled it off--<br/>
<br/>
A strong hand seizes you by the shoulder, and you whirl to find Rick himself holding you. "Man asked you a question, squirt," he says, and there's no hint of recognition in his eye.<br/>
<br/>
"Uh-- Uh--" you stammer.<br/>
<br/>
"How old <i>are</i> you?" Rick demands.<br/>
<br/>
The fat clerk comes up, frowning fiercely. You look around desperately, and find that the man behind the register is now looking at you as well.<br/>
<br/>
"I-- I just--"<br/>
<br/>
"You got some idiot friends who put you up to it?" Rick asks. He looks at the clerk. "Kid shouldn't even be in here unsupervised."<br/>
<br/>
"This some kind of a prank," the clerk asks you. He doesn't sound like he'll be mollified by a confession that it is, but--<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah," you squeak. "There's some guys out there, and they--"<br/>
<br/>
"You need to learn to pick your friends more carefully," Rick says, and tightens his grip on your neck. He turns to the clerk. "How fast can you have the cops out here?"<br/>
<br/>
To your surprise, the clerk demurs. "Oh, if it was just a dare the kid was acting on-- I don't think that's really necessary."<br/>
<br/>
"You don't?" Rick asks softly. With his free hand he brushes at his lapel. "You don't want the cops coming in? That's really interesting."<br/>
<br/>
The clerk flushes deeply. "Carlos! Call the station, tell 'em we need a patrolman out here."<br/>
<br/>
"Rick!" you gasp, and turn the name into a cough as he turns a cold glare on you. You hang your head miserably.<br/>
<br/>
Rick snatches the bottle from your hand and rudely pushes you back up to the counter. "Might as well make a sale while I'm here," he says as he sets the bottle by the register and pulls some crumpled bills from his pocket. "And you, you little pisser, sit over there and reflect on what a lot of miserable little shits you've been hanging out with."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
<i>Of course he's just punishing you for cocking up the exercise,</i> you tell yourself. After making his point, he'll arrange for the cops to let you go.<br/>
<br/>
But instead, he leaves. Twenty minutes later a man in blue comes in and is directed over to you. He questions you and he questions the clerks, and the latter now seem very keen to press charges, and the patrolman guides you out. Your heart beats hard as he leads you over to the cruiser. You head for the back seat but he pulls you around. "Jesus, kid, don't take it so seriously," he says in a weary voice. "Up front with me. You can run the siren if you want."<br/>
<br/>
You slouch miserably in the seat as he takes out his paperwork. Is Rick going to go that far, letting you get thrown in a holding tank with a lot of filth and degenerates, letting you stew there until-- What'll Kali say when you use your phone call--you get a phone call, don't you?--to get in touch with her? She'll kill Rick. Or she'll kill you--<br/>
<br/>
"What's your name, kid?" the policeman asks.<br/>
<br/>
"Will. Will Prescott." You don't even have ID.<br/>
<br/>
"Address?" You give him Kali's address, and her phone number, and he doesn't seem to pay attention as you try to explain that you're only staying with friends of the family. He continues to scratch a pen across the form.<br/>
<br/>
You look up. Rick is slouched by the building, watching you with a frown. You wince from his stare. He isn't going to help you. You're going to have to get out of this yourself.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Get out of it yourself.</i> That's what this is about, now. He's waiting to see if you can get out.<br/>
<br/>
You can't run. Maybe if you hide again you can just slip from the cruiser. Or--<br/>
<br/>
You clench your hand, and feel the first sigil appear there. Slowly, as though you're just stretching, you extend your arms, pushing one close to--<br/>
<br/>
"Get your hand--" the patrolman starts, but then you push your palm against his cheek. He gasps and arches his back, and slumps. You keep your palm against the side of his face, but you only summon the first sigil. You suck on your lower lip as you feel his <i>imago</i> burning into your hand. When it cools you pull your hand back. You start to get out, but pause long enough to twitch the report from his clipboard and stick it in your pocket.<br/>
<br/>
Rick just jerks his chin, and you walk around the corner of the store to wait. A minute later Rick pulls up in his car and you get in. "Took you long enough," he grumbles. "And you might've tried disappearing before you went for his face."<br/>
<br/>
"I didn't know if--"<br/>
<br/>
"Well, that'll be something to try on your <i>second</i> job."<br/>
<br/>
"We're not going to do that <i>now,</i> are we?" you moan.<br/>
<br/>
"Nah. We got what we came for." He pats the bottle.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Back at Kali's, he debriefs you. "Always scope out the scene, make sure you got <i>everyone</i> into your cape before you move," he says. "Watch for anyone who comes in afterward. Your cape might not be very big, so you might hafta to deploy it a coupla times during a job as people move in and out of it."<br/>
<br/>
"Got it."<br/>
<br/>
"No you don't. Not till you've practiced. A lot." He crinkles his brow. "You have fun?"<br/>
<br/>
"Not really," you admit. "I've never shoplifted before."<br/>
<br/>
"You're gonna be stealing a lot more than cheap liquor, squirt. Learn to enjoy yourself."<br/>
<br/>
You snort unhappily. "Wouldn't all this be easier if I just tried it as <i>you,</i> Rick? I mean, I've got your <i>imago,</i> and your brain, inside me. If I just used that, I'd already know how to do this. Probably perfectly too."<br/>
<br/>
"Maybe," he grunts. "'Cept I dunno how to use your stuff. I'm learning too, by watching you, and telling you how to improve. Besides, you can't use me as a crutch, or any of the faces you pick up. They'll have different skills, part of your disguise. But <i>you'll</i> have to be good at what you do, no matter what you're looking like. You gotta be able to walk into the museum looking like a cute little cheerleader, steal the cursed dagger from out its case, knife a few cultists, pick up a copy of the chief Thuggee's <i>imago</i>, post a picture to Facebook of you and your quarterback boyfriend making out in front of the forged Rembrandt, and get back on the school bus, all without any of your silly little school friends noticing what you've been doing."<br/>
<br/>
You stare at him. "You think I'll be able to do that?" you squeak.<br/>
<br/>
"If you can't, you're gonna have a very short career and a very private funeral. Now, this cop whose face you copied. You seal it up already? Then keep it unsealed," he says when you shake your head. "He wasn't bad looking, but Kali says you can make up new faces, so keep him open so you can add to him. Chances are you wouldn't run into any of his friends while looking like him, but you might as well have yourself a <i>new</i> face when you go back out for more."<br/>
<br/>
"More?"<br/>
<br/>
"Sure. We're gonna start by picking you up some looks for bedroom work. That'll be easy <i>and</i> useful."<br/>
<br/>
"Bedroom work?"<br/>
<br/>
"Grabbing faces--grabbing lots of things--will be easier if you and the target are alone and naked and wrestling with a snake between you. You'll want at least five girls and five guys--one of 'em gay--who are really good looking. Hope you don't got <i>moral</i> qualms about sleeping around."</span></div></div>


path: 11221111111222112211112221212112112121122121211212111212211212211112
author_id: seuzz
title: The Midterm, Part 1
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>"Well, I, uh--" You feel yourself turning very red. "Look, even if I <i>didn't</i>-- don't have a, uh, a problem with--" You can only gasp. It probably wouldn't be any easier if Rick were grinning wolfishly at your discomfort, but it's deeply unnerving to make confessions while he just stares at you with a stony weariness. "I don't have a lot of experience with, uh--"<br/>
<br/>
"With fucking? How much of your virginity have you lost?"<br/>
<br/>
"How <i>much?</i>"<br/>
<br/>
"You ever been up a pussy, or have you only had blow jobs? What's that?" he asks as you mutter something.<br/>
<br/>
"I said-- Half a blow job? Look, it was this girl and me up at summer camp, and we were kind of curious--"<br/>
<br/>
"Okay, it's not like you gotta draw me a diagram. Half a blow job, huh? Well, we all gotta start someplace. How are you with girls? Flirtation-wise, I guess I mean." He rolls his eyes.<br/>
<br/>
You shrug weakly. "There was one girl, over the summer--" Lisa Yarborough seems very far away, like the memory of someone else's life. "We hung around. Put our arms around each other." You shrug again. "I kissed her once. On the top of her head." <i>Did you? Or was it just a fantasy that you indulged so often that it finally seemed real? How pathetic is it that your most vivid fantasy only involved a chaste kiss of Lisa's hair?</i> <br/>
<br/>
"Puppy love," Rick says. "Not terribly useful. So you're gonna need training wheels." He hunches forward, elbows on knees, and blinks slowly and stupidly. "We can start you off as a guy, and you can get a girl. Then use the girl to get another guy. Or," he sighs, as though the effort of thinking is just too much work and not really worth it. "Start you as a girl who gets a guy who gets a girl. Doesn't matter, really, except for whichever one is easiest to start with." He glances around uneasily. "But those can be your starter set. Use them to practice, start building up techniques, personalities for each of your looks." He grunts. "Maybe it's gonna be harder than I thought. Letting myself run away with-- Well ..."<br/>
<br/>
You blink slowly yourself. You shouldn't be shocked, but there it is.<br/>
<br/>
You felt jealous of Joe and Frank and what they could do when you were with them. You didn't really let yourself see it at the time, but you actually were jealous of Joe's effervescent brilliance and golden charm, and of Frank's strength and ability to wield a mean invisible fist. <br/>
<br/>
So it would make sense that other people--other Stellae--might similarly feel jealous of <i>your</i> gifts.<br/>
<br/>
"Maybe we should actually wait a bit," you say. "Maybe I should get a firmer handle on what I can do, get more comfortable with it before I start ..." You trail off. It's even harder alluding to getting laid when you have Rick's feelings to take account of.<br/>
<br/>
If he <i>has</i> feelings. His eyes flick over to your face, and you feel him looking deeply within you. It's not hard to see that he has guessed what you have guessed, but he keeps his reaction veiled.<br/>
<br/>
"Maybe so," he says at last. "But for professional reasons if no other, you don't want to wind up like the cadet."<br/>
<br/>
"How do you mean?"<br/>
<br/>
"All clenched up. He's got a mean grip, but he puts most of it into keeping his erections <i>down.</i>"<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Rick's "bedroom work" goes on the backburner without it even being broached to Kali or Miko--probably for the best, since you can't imagine either one of them would go along with it. Instead, you and your trainers concentrate on "sorting you out."<br/>
<br/>
It's as you'd done with the "invisibility trick": Studying each of the four sigils over which you have mastery; giving each a "handle" that you can use to quickly grasp and deploy it; and seeing how to quickly bring each one to bear on the others. <br/>
<br/>
You also spend time "unlocking" each sigil, studying its constituent parts for smaller, useful tricks. You are able to summon up each sigil in the palms of your hands--Kali insists on not copying any down on paper--while the others peer at it and study it. It's exhausting work, for you have to concentrate long and hard to keep each sigil clearly in place; fortunately, your own intimate relationship to the sigils, plus your rapidly improving skills at sigil reading and sigil construction, mean you can help them disassemble the sigils. You are, for instance, able to crack the part of the code that renders victims unconscious. It takes two days of extended meditation exercises under Rick's guidance before you can figure out a way of housing it as a separate ability, but you're able to get it into your fingertip. Now, with a light but firm touch you will be able to put someone into a deep stupor.<br/>
<br/>
You have less success with finding a way to trawl for specific memories. "The <i>Libra</i> was intended for demonic work, not delicate work," Kali grimly concludes after nearly a week of close study. "It is structured to swallow <i>everything</i> inside a victim, and the user of a mask must then find what he's looking for himself."<br/>
<br/>
"Squirt's not gonna wanna carry a lot of garbage around," Rick grumbles. "Don't know if he's got a maximum capacity, but even if he doesn't--" He makes a face.<br/>
<br/>
It's Miko who hits on the solution when she observes that you need a "memorandum book" for important information. Kali sets to work giving you memory-training exercises, and when she is finally satisfied with your laborious progress--"I have never known such a feather-head," she says crossly more than once--Rick shows you how to organize the trick into a sigil of its own. "Think of it like a thumb drive, squirt," he tells you when you can't quite figure out how to give it its own "handle." "Any info you want to keep but don't want cluttering up your own head, it goes inside that thing." That gives you what you need, and you're soon tucking away all sorts of school-book trivia--about wars and presidents, chemical formulae and mathematical equations--into it. Schoolwork is easier for a few days, until you make the mistake of telling Kali what you're doing, whereupon she scolds you into stopping it. "It's not a matter of accumulating <i>trivia,</i> child," she says, and for the first time since you've come to see her, you think she must be really angry. "It's about assembling data into patterns. That's where the <i>real</i> facts are." Dutifully, you obey her directive, but you're still pleased to see that the trick works as Rick had hoped it would.<br/>
<br/>
He is even able to take that same custom-made trick and turn it inside out so that it functions as a kind of incinerator for memories and body prints, so that you won't have unwanted <i>imago</i> cluttering you up. You dump those fragments of Miko's memories that you'd picked up, but Rick tells you to keep her physical image along with his own face and head. "Talk to Kali about picking up hers," he says.<br/>
<br/>
"Why?" you gasp. You still haven't forgotten what he'd said about "bedroom work."<br/>
<br/>
"You might be needed for decoy work at some point," he says. "Take our place while we disappear to take care of job, or distract the bad guy. You might as well pick up these things from us while they're available and easy to grab."<br/>
<br/>
You make sure to mention it only privately to Kali, though. She smiles thinly and only says, "I think we'll leave <i>that</i> decision to Charles."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
So passes the week. Meditation and sigil work alternate with school work and exercises with Rick: more shoplifting trips (though always with a second trip in to leave more cash than is required); the surreptitious copying of people's forms and minds (though always flushed away afterward); tips on dressing. <br/>
<br/>
"Shame you can't shift your clothes, too," he observes when that subject comes up, and suggests going out in a track suit when you think you might be making a change outside of your base. "Something medium sized," he says when he and Miko take you shopping that afternoon. "Not too tight if you have to balloon up, small enough that you won't drown in it if you turn petite. Generic, so it'll work for a man and a woman both." Miko snorts and argues the whole time at the <i>impossibility</i> of his demands, but they finally settle on a green-and-gray ensemble. <br/>
<br/>
They also buy you a gym bag that you stuff with a variety of non-descript clothes: a pair of jeans, some slacks, a t-shirt and a polo shirt, two one-piece dresses, some sneakers and some sandals; all in different sizes. "No one will look twice at a gym bag, however you're dressed," Rick says. "You can change anyplace--public restroom if you have too--if you're playing hide and seek."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
The Christmas season has crept over the horizon when Rick takes you down to a tony health club and gets you a membership. "Three months only," he says as he leads you in. "You can use it as intended if you want, though with your metabolism you won't need it."<br/>
<br/>
"So why are we here?"<br/>
<br/>
"Call it a mid-term, squirt."<br/>
<br/>
<i>An exam?</i> Excitement mingles with panic in your chest. "What am I supposed to do?"<br/>
<br/>
He just waves you silent. After helping you fill out the paperwork at the front desk, he hands the clerk a billfold. "Found this out front," he says. "Thought you should put in the lost and found." The guy shrugs and slips it under the counter.<br/>
<br/>
Back in the car: "Here's your shopping list," Rick says, and hands you a sheet of paper. "Recovering that billfold is top priority. It's Miko's."</span></div></div>


path: 112211111112221122111122212121121121211221212112121112122112122111121
author_id: seuzz
title: The Midterm, Part 2
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>You've done exercises by now that few of the items on the list surprise you; but you still strain slightly for a professional-sounding tone as you talk over it with him.<br/>
<br/>
"The billfold," you muse. "Use my cape to get back behind the counter. Faces of at least two women and at least two guys. Am I thinking in terms of bedroom work?" You're now more used to that idea, though you haven't acted on it yet.<br/>
<br/>
"Up to you, squirt." He continues gazing out the car window.<br/>
<br/>
You just move further down the list. "Someone's account balance. I'll need their ATM card and PIN number, so I'll have to get into their locker as well as their head."<br/>
<br/>
"For extra credit, make it one of the women," he says. "You'll be walking in looking like yourself."<br/>
<br/>
"What do I do with the card when I'm done? Take it back, give it to the counter guy?"<br/>
<br/>
"Your call."<br/>
<br/>
"I don't want to keep it, obviously. Wait, what's this? What makes you think there's gonna be a <i>Doberman</i> in there?"<br/>
<br/>
"Because you're gonna take it in." He makes a face as he glances at the sheet. "Ah, forgot to jot down that little detail. Yeah, you're gonna take a Doberman in there and release it in a racquetball court."<br/>
<br/>
"They're never gonna let me-- Oh, I see. You wanna see if I can smuggle a live animal in without being noticed. Where's the dog now?"<br/>
<br/>
"Kennel. I'll pick it up in the morning. Yeah, you're doing this tomorrow, so you'll have a little time to plot it out. Any other questions?"<br/>
<br/>
You think long and hard, but can only come up with one. "Isn't it kind of dangerous leaving Miko's billfold there overnight? What if someone steals her stuff out of it?"<br/>
<br/>
"I dunno," he says in a weary voice. "What's in there to steal?"<br/>
<br/>
"You tell me," you retort. "Oh. Yeah, what do I need to check it for, so I can tell if anything's been stolen from it?"<br/>
<br/>
"Four rather sentimental photos, a wadded up Kleenex, and thirteen cents. Whoever dropped it out front would have cleaned it out of anything valuable. And we don't need any Good Samaritans calling to tell her they found it."<br/>
<br/>
"Does she know you took it?"<br/>
<br/>
He just looks at you. "It's been a month since you asked a question that stupid. Of course she doesn't."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You'd pictured the Doberman as something big and rapacious, but it turns out to be a skittering, manic puppy, and it helicopters in place when Rick hands you its leash. He doesn't wish you luck either, and only tells you he'll meet you at the bar down the street when you're done.<br/>
<br/>
For the moment, you're looking like yourself; you're dressed in that track suit, and have your gym bag slung over your shoulder. The dog yips and barks and spins at your feet, and you grimace at it. The real challenge would be getting it in like this, but Rick only said you needed to deposit it on a court, so you reach down to scratch its ears; it manages to lick your hand twice before falling over in a doze. You scoop it to your chest and walk toward the gym.<br/>
<br/>
There's no one around, but with a small twist of your hand you throw your "invisibility cape" out. You pause in the doorway and scope it out inside. The clerk from yesterday is at the counter, taking care of three women and a man. You sidle toward them until you're close enough to sweep them up in your net; you let it trail behind you--and you can practically feel it stretching taut--until you're in the hallway leading to the racquetball courts, at which point you release them and cast it in front of you.<br/>
<br/>
Your "cape" you've found, doesn't work exactly like an invisibility cloak. If someone is looking at you, you can't deploy it against them unless they happen to look away; and if they happen to step into it without seeing you, you still have to wrap them in it after the fact. So you edge sideways down the hall, swinging your head fore and aft for anyone appearing in front of or behind you. Some players come out of a court; you quickly wrap them up in the cape, and press against the wall as they pass. You slip into the court they exited and gently set the dog down in the corner. Unless someone finds it first, it will likely wake up in five or ten minutes.<br/>
<br/>
You don't need cloaking now, and stride confidently back into the main exercise room. It is filled with running and spinning machines, many of which are occupied by fit-looking people in expensive gym clothes. It wouldn't be a good idea knocking out anyone who is jogging or cycling in place, so you move onto the weight room. There are easier targets there, but the room is filled with mirrored walls, and your experience is that the cape doesn't work well when mirrors are around. So you continue on.<br/>
<br/>
You come to rest in a room filled with Nautilus equipment. This is good; no one will collapse to the floor if you knock them out. You saunter along near the walls, staying out of eye lines--not hard since people are concentrating on looking straight ahead--and catch each one in a fold of the cape. When you've got them all blinded to your presence, you start picking your targets.<br/>
<br/>
For your first choice you pick an extremely taut young woman in tights and a sports top. Her chest is magnificent; her eyes large and liquid and green; her nose pert; and her features symmetrical. Her blonde hair is bound up in a ponytail. You casually stroll up behind her, and when she pauses in her exertions you reach around and put your hand over her brow. She instantly relaxes, and you hold her up as you feel her mind and image burning into your hand.<br/>
<br/>
As you absorb her, you glance around for a second target. On a leg press a few machines away is a tall young man with close-cropped brown hair and an aquiline nose. As you watch, you see him glance over at your current target, and suppress a small smile at the thought that he can see her--he is checking her out none too subtly--but will be paying no attention to you. But as you release the woman, she sags a little to the side, and the guy reacts, pausing in mid thrust as her head lolls to the side. You hasten over to him, and as he starts to get up you hold your palm up so that steps right into it; he falls back with a grunt, and you push in after him, sucking up his <i>imago</i> as well. You had, of course, tucked away the girl's <i>imago</i> separately, so there will be no merging of them.<br/>
<br/>
But even as you are absorbing him, your first victim slips from her seat and slides to the floor; she won't have hurt herself, but you can see the heads of the other exercisers turning toward her. Help will be coming--maybe even paramedics, if she's managed to ding her head on the way down--so as soon as you wrap things up with the guy, you slip out a far door and return to the weight room.<br/>
<br/>
You make a quick circuit without cloaking yourself. There are a lot of guys here, sitting on benches in front of the mirrors and doing curls. Some of the guys on the bench presses would be possibilities--unconscious, they'd just look like they were recovering from their exertions--but most of them have spotters, and they are all in the middle of the room. You've about given up when you find one guy on the floor in the corner, near the windows looking out into the attached outdoor café, doing crunches.<br/>
<br/>
His eyes are closed, but you throw your cape over him anyway and squat down next to him. He is trim and brown and looks like a cycler. You sit cross-legged by his head, and when he pauses to catch his breath, you drop your hand over his face. You assume that if anyone notices, it will just look like you're visiting with a friend.<br/>
<br/>
That done, you make another circuit of the weight room, and then make a cursory sweep of the natatorium. Water is Rick's element--his distaste for the substance notwithstanding--and you wouldn't want to risk drowning anyone by grabbing them in the pool. Your bag has been weighing on your shoulder all this time, so you head into the men's locker room. It's much cleaner and smells much better than the one back at Westside, you instantly notice. You put your bag away, and pause to consider your next move. <br/>
<br/>
The women's locker room is on the other side of the building; will your female acquisition have an ATM card? You close your eyes against a brief spell of dizziness as you pull her mind into yours. <i>Lauren Roos; single; works for a local consumer advocacy group.</i> Recent memories? <i>Hmm, she was scoping out your male acquisition as well.</i> Her purse is in her bag, both are in her locker; there will be a card; her PIN is 5849. You hesitate before heading over to get it. You'll need to change into her form before going into the women's changing room, but she has a friend, Marie Garner, in the building, and you don't want to run into her while looking like Lauren. In fact, it's dangerous walking around like Lauren anyway, since she will have been at the center of a little excitement in the Nautilus room.<br/>
<br/>
But Rick promised you "extra credit."</span></div></div>


path: 1122111111122211221111222121211211212112212121121211121221121221111212
author_id: seuzz
title: The Midterm, Successfully Completed
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>Better to be cautious, you decide, and put Lauren's mind away for the moment, to turn to the men.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Angel Somoza.</i> That was the guy doing crunches. His locker is only a few feet away, and you're quickly able to get it open and his debit card out.<br/>
<br/>
You had your first and quickest successes at the Nautilus machines, so you return there. It is much more crowded now, and you spot both Lauren and--<br/>
<br/>
Your mind goes <i>flick flick.</i><br/>
<br/>
--Nick Stevenson. They are looking a little pale, and an alarmingly trim guy in a red polo and white slacks--a staff member, obviously--is talking with them, hands on hips. As others resume their places at their machines, you take one yourself and continue to watch out of the corner of your eye. It appears that everyone has concluded that there's been no serious emergency, and the knots break up again. It amuses you to see that Lauren and Nick have forged a tentative bond over their simultaneous fainting fits, and they leave together. You wonder if you've accidentally played Cupid for them.<br/>
<br/>
After ten minutes of a light workout, you lean back and throw your cloak over the room again. Another woman--a brunette with short, spiky hair--has taken the machine just across from you, and her look of grim concentration suggests she wouldn't have noticed you anyway. You move behind her and repeat the earlier operation. People are going to start wondering if the ventilation in the room is bad, and you're glad to be able to wrap it up.<br/>
<br/>
So much had you been concentrating on things that you'd forgotten about the dog, but while you still have your hand on your last acquisition you hear a sharp but muffled yapping. You take care to get--<i>Now what is this girl's name? Ah, Carrie Stewart</i>--wedged safely back into her machine before going to check on whatever excitement the puppy has set off. There's now a very big crowd in the hallway running past the racquetball, and as you crane your neck you see the same red-shirted manager coming out of the court with a lithe, furry form struggling in his arms. You suppress a grin and hurry to the lobby. This will probably be the best moment for getting back into the lost and found.<br/>
<br/>
There are five people at the front desk, but no one behind it. You toss your coils about the customers and scurry around the counter, where you duck down and look along the shelves. But there's nothing that looks like a box for lost items, and your hands begin to shake as you search more frantically. You glance over your shoulder, to catch sight of a door. Probably it leads back into an office, and you scamper over to it. You've just laid your hand on the handle when it turns under your hand. You look up just in time for it to open and for a man to clap his eyes onto you. <br/>
<br/>
Instinct takes over, and you slap an open palm over his face and push him back. He starts to collapse, and you throw a weak arm around his torso to support him, even as you kick the door closed with your heel. You let him fall to the ground, and with one hand still pressed to his face you reach up to lock the door.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Well, this is a nice spot,</i> you think haggardly. You look around. It's a large office with a table in the middle and two desks against the walls. An open door leads into a kitchenette. The other door? Closed, and there's no telling where it goes. You grimace hard as you try to think what to do.<br/>
<br/>
A sharp knock at the door. The dog barks on the other side.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.</i><br/>
<br/>
The man on the ground: He's also in track pants, not quite the same color as yours, but that doesn't matter, as he's wearing a red polo shirt. Maybe that wouldn't signify if you had to imitate him. You can't make out his features under your hand, but he's got a shock of black hair.<br/>
<br/>
Another knock at the door. "Bruce?" a voice calls. The dog yaps, and the handle jiggles. {i]If that guy's got a key ...<br/>
<br/>
Your hand comes away, and it's probably your own nerves that make you think there's a sucking sound as it does. Quickly you drag your victim by his pits into that kitchenette. More hammering at the door. No time to swap clothes; you'll just have to trust to the face and mind to carry the impersonation.<br/>
<br/>
In your palm, you summon up the sigil with his features in it, slap the "seal" sigil over it, and then press your hand to your own face. A shudder passes through you, though it's not one of pain. When it was masks, they would knock you out, but you <i>are</i> the mask now, and the transformation is as quick as it would be on a golem. You lose an inch in height, but feel all your other muscles swell up; your face and scalp twist. With a sharp breath, you dive face-first into his mind.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Fuck is going on out there?</i> That's Bruce Park's question. But now you <i>are</i> Bruce Park, the gym's manager. You pull the kitchenette door closed behind you, stride over to the office door, and yank it open. Todd Coffee, the dog in his arm, grimaces. "What were you--?"<br/>
<br/>
"I was taking a crap-- What is <i>that?</i>"<br/>
<br/>
"It was in one of the courts." The dog wriggles in his arms and barks again. "Don't ask me how--"<br/>
<br/>
"The <i>fuck?</i>" You look over Todd's shoulder at the amused crowd that's gathered. "Okay, look, just give it here," you hurriedly say as you take it from him. "You say it was in one of the courts? Go make sure it didn't shit on everything."<br/>
<br/>
"I already looked--"<br/>
<br/>
"Well, go look again. Then get Gary and Regina and go around and find out-- How did it even get <i>inside?</i>"<br/>
<br/>
"I <i>said</i> I don't know!"<br/>
<br/>
"Shut up. If this is one of <i>your</i>-- Just get Gary and Regina and <i>find</i> the asshole who--" The dog tries leaping away. "Just go. I'll put this thing in the bathroom until we figure out what's going on."<br/>
<br/>
Todd shakes his head moodily, and with a snort you close the door on him. <br/>
<br/>
As you sweep back toward the other door--the private toilet--you open the drawer that's used as the lost-and-found, and extract Miko's wallet. A quick glance inside discloses the four photographs, the Kleenex, and some loose change. You shove it in your hip pocket and toss the dog onto the bathroom tile. It wheels in place, claws clattering, and then jumps for the toilet and laps loudly at the water. You close the door on it.<br/>
<br/>
You still have to retrieve your own gym bag, and as you think how to do that, you pluck absent-mindedly at your top. <i>Mm, yeah, that's wrong. Todd didn't notice in the excitement at the door, but--</i> From a shelf you pull down one of the extra polo shirts and quickly change into it, tucking your own top into the crook in your arm. Your pants are wrong too, but there's no extras of them, and you figure they can pass without comment.<br/>
<br/>
No need for the cloak, you've decided, so you exit the office, marching smartly through the lobby and along the hallways. "Hey Bruce," Gary Wright calls from the Nautilus room as you pass, and you pause to give him a hard, impatient glare. He takes a step back and holds up his hands. "Just tellin' you we had another fainter in--"<br/>
<br/>
"Is she okay?"<br/>
<br/>
"I think so, but--"<br/>
<br/>
"I wanna know about that <i>dog.</i> Take care of whatever you're babbling about, then tell Todd to talk to the guys in the weight room. That's where the jokers like to hang out."<br/>
<br/>
"Just tellin' you that makes three to--"<br/>
<br/>
"Come find me in fifteen minutes at the office and tell me then. I'm sure I'll be a lot more interested." You roll your eyes and walk away.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Yeah, Bruce Park will be </i>a lot<i> more interested in mysterious fainting attacks in about fifteen minutes.</i><br/>
<br/>
You get your bag back out, and then haul ass to the front desk. Nearly a half dozen people are there, waiting to sign in or sign out, but you brush them off. No need for subtlety now. You get the dog out of the bathroom, and since the rest of the staff is now well scattered, are able to make it out the door with all your items without being stopped.<br/>
<br/>
You step around a deserted corner, drop the dog to the sidewalk, and lean against the wall while changing back to "Will Prescott." You're shaking all over as you emerge: Bruce Park has better nerves than you.<br/>
<br/>
You don't want to get caught near the gym with that dog, so you walk quickly along, the dog skipping happily at your heel, until you reach the ATM machine you'd previously scoped out. You insert Angel's card, tap in the PIN, get a print out of his account balance, then reclaim and reinsert the card. This time you mistype the PIN over and over until the machine eats the card. The bank will get it back to him.<br/>
<br/>
Then it's a brisk walk to find Rick. His car is in front of that bar, but of course he'll be inside. The car door is unlocked, and you drop the dog into it, cracking a window open. Then, since you are underage, you crawl into the car long enough to change into--</span></div></div>


path: 11221111111222112211112221212112112121122121211212111212211212211112121
author_id: seuzz
title: The Debriefing
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>It's a nice neighborhood, with expensive shops and smart-looking, old-fashioned apartment buildings along the street, but the bar is dim and seedy. You study it a moment with Bruce Park's mind. <i>Yes, it's a very old establishment, here before the neighborhood became gentrified.</i> In fact it's almost the last holdout from the days when this was a real urban scene, when it was haunted by cops and workers from the since-closed refinery. Bruce himself sometimes stops by for a drink, but you don't see much danger of him coming in while you're here.<br/>
<br/>
The inside is dim, and the design and color scheme--avocado and burnt orange--suggest it hasn't been remodeled since the late 70s. Rick hunches at the bar in his shabby sports coat, his back to you. You slide onto the stool next to him and smile a little at your reflection in the mirror. It's a strong face, a "do not fuck with me" face, the face of a guy who excelled during his stint in the Korean army and came real close to trying out for their special forces before returning to the United States as a permanent resident. You should keep it for your collection.<br/>
<br/>
You order a bourbon, and sense Rick shifting his head slightly. You pull out Miko's billfold and the ATM receipt and slide them over. He glances at the statement before crumpling it up and slipping it and the billfold into his pocket. Then he looks at your reflection. "I was hoping for prettier company," he grumbles.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
He pays for your drink and leads you to a corner booth, where he sits with his back to the wall. Only then does he ask for an account of your mission.<br/>
<br/>
Your fancy your report is crisply told, with just enough detail to be clear but not overwhelming. Rick nurses his drink and asks you to repeat it. "What's my grade?" you ask when you're done. You don't expect him to lay on the flattery, but you are expecting praise and a good score.<br/>
<br/>
"Well, you got what I sent you for, which is enough for a D," he says. "No more than that, though." You feel your face fall. He twists his glass. "Maybe a few points extra for bringing Roger back, but--" He shrugs and throws a shot of amber liquid into his mouth.<br/>
<br/>
You're so shocked you hardly know where to start, so you hook onto-- "Who's Roger?"<br/>
<br/>
"The dog."<br/>
<br/>
"I didn't know he had a name. Is he--? Shit, Rick, is he a colleague?"<br/>
<br/>
He stares at you. "He's a Doberman, which you'd know just by looking at him."<br/>
<br/>
"<i>Colleague,</i> Rick, not <i>collie.</i>"<br/>
<br/>
His eyelids lower fractionally. "Is that you with the bad attitude, or this Chinaman you're looking like?"<br/>
<br/>
"<i>Korean,</i> you-- And maybe it's a little bit of both of us."<br/>
<br/>
"Well, unknot yourself. You're here to learn, not get bullshit grades."<br/>
<br/>
You bite your tongue and tamp down your temper. <i>You thought you'd done so well.</i><br/>
<br/>
"You made too big a stir," Rick says, anticipating your complaint. "Always try to get in and out without causing a ripple. You cause confusion only if that's <i>part</i> of the mission statement. Otherwise, no one is to know or even suspect that anything was amiss."<br/>
<br/>
"Hard to do that when you give me a <i>dog</i>--"<br/>
<br/>
"Dog was a three-part exercise, and you shoulda seen that. Anticipate all the angles and plan accordingly. First challenge was getting it in. You thought through that one right, and pulled it off nice. Second was to use it as a distraction, to help get what else you needed. You didn't use it right."<br/>
<br/>
"I couldn't predict when it was going to wake up and start causing trouble."<br/>
<br/>
"That was the third part. There's always gonna be surprises. That dog stirring the place up? Stand in for the kind of thing that can always happen on a job, and a lot less harmful to the gym than me busting a water main on them."<br/>
<br/>
You fold your arms because you <i>have</i> to, but you soften the gesture by resting them on the table. "Okay, how <i>should</i> I have done it?"<br/>
<br/>
"Well, you were smart to put the dog away first. Going for the guy doing crunches? Also smart. Playing safe by avoiding the ladies' locker room? Also smart."<br/>
<br/>
"You promised me extra credit if--"<br/>
<br/>
"And you'd've gotten it. One or two points to soften the absolute <i>clusterfark</i> you'd likely have set off. No, those are the three things you did right. You had presence of mind in a few spots, but a lotta luck, too. Frankly, you shouldn't have gotten out." He gives you a hard look. "Given the jobs you're going to be on, you can't trust to luck. Has to be skill."<br/>
<br/>
"So what was the <i>skillful</i> solution, Rick? You weren't there--"<br/>
<br/>
"No, and in a minute I'm not going to be <i>here</i> if you keep bucking me."<br/>
<br/>
"I'm sorry."<br/>
<br/>
"Accepted. I can't tell you step by step what you should've done, but I can tell you the strategy."<br/>
<br/>
He leans forward. "First, you should've made a circuit, inside and outside that cape you carry around. See who and what was where. Spot staff members and what they were doing. Play on some machines so you don't look suspicious. Wait for a chance to copy a staff member. This guy--" He points at you. "Someone else. Doesn't matter."<br/>
<br/>
"That would've taken forever."<br/>
<br/>
"Did I say there was a time limit? If you don't know there's a deadline, assume absolute stealth as your strategy."<br/>
<br/>
"But what if there is a time limit, but I don't know there is? Shouldn't I be getting into and out of a job as fast as possible?"<br/>
<br/>
He raises a finger. "Fast as possible <i>without</i> causing a stir. If you <i>know</i> there's a time limit, that's when stealth takes a back seat. Yeah, it's a balance, but based on what I gave you, you should've slowed back and taken the afternoon."<br/>
<br/>
"I got the faces pretty quick, though."<br/>
<br/>
"And the ones on the Nautilus machines caused a lot of attention. Crunch boy was your best get. You should've waited for more like that. Camped unseen in the locker rooms, maybe."<br/>
<br/>
"Okay, I get it."<br/>
<br/>
"And the faces should have been your last priority. Billfold should have been job one after dropping the dog off.  You should've shadowed staff members until you could score a set of memories, learned where the lost and found was. Checked on the dog while you were waiting, moving it and knocking it back out again as needed. Then, after you found where the billfold was, you could've waited for the dog to wake up. That likely would have pulled people away from the front counter, and then you could've gotten back in that office in the confusion. You wouldn't have needed to knock anyone out, steal clothes, walk around under another face--" He grimaces and shrugs. "After getting the billfold you could've drifted on the current, waiting for people to drop where you could lift their body prints." He leans back and stretches his legs. "You coulda made a nice, relaxing afternoon of it."<br/>
<br/>
"And you coulda gotten a little more drinking done."<br/>
<br/>
"Who says we're not gonna do that now, squirt? I toldja you got a D. That's enough I'm not gonna make you take it again. And it's enough for--" He flicks the rim of your now empty glass with a rough fingernail. "This guy you're wearing. How much liquor can he hold?"<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
The next two hours are much nicer. Rick relaxes and relaxes and relaxes, and he tells you stories about some of the jobs he's had to do--for the Stellae, or to simply pay his own bills--and describes how he could have completed them much more quickly and neatly if he'd been able to do what you can do. He even sets you a puzzle at one point, setting up a case, and asking you to decide step by step what you would do as it unfolded, and describing what would have happened if you'd done each of those things. His critique still rankles, but you do appreciate the insights he gives you, and you have to be at least grudgingly grateful that he's having you learn by doing instead of just telling you what to do and how to do it.<br/>
<br/>
It's a little after three when you return to Kali's. You take the wheel, of course. Rick is very good at holding his liquor, but even he is impaired by a few too many. He does insist on swinging through the gym parking lot on the way, and he tosses the shirt you stole at the front door.<br/>
<br/>
Back home, he has you summon up the other four images you stole. "They're a cute couple," he says of Nick Stevenson and Lauren Roos, and he advises you to seal up their images and Bruce Park's for use as is. The other two he advises leaving open, and you merge Angel with the cop you got on your job at the liquor store.<br/>
<br/>
Kali and Miko return around five. "He passed," Rick grunts when they ask how you did. Kali congratulates you: "Rick is hard grader." Miko asks for details, but Rick just says, "Tell you later."<br/>
<br/>
Instead, he fixes an eye on you. "That was supervised practice, squirt. Time to throw away the kickboard and show me what kind of strokes you can do on your own. I'll give you a choice. I just got a new case. Regular world stuff, not our stuff, but you could help me on it."<br/>
<br/>
"That could be fun," you say with actual sincerity. "What's the other choice?"<br/>
<br/>
A small smile creeps up the side of his face. "Get the faces and brains of the kid and the cadet. Without them knowing you got them."</span></div></div>


path: 112211111112221122111122212121121121211221212112121112122112122111121212
author_id: seuzz
title: The Next Test
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>Kali and Miko swing around to stare at Rick, and your own jaw slackens. "What are you <i>talking about,</i> you degenerate--" Miko starts.<br/>
<br/>
"Keep your shirt on. That or take it all the way off," Rick says. Miko leaps to her feet paces the room, making faces at him behind his back, but he ignores her. "It's the natural next step," Rick continues. "He has to go up against people like us eventually. He can start with those two. No risk, except embarrassment when he gets caught."<br/>
<br/>
"And if I don't get caught?" you ask. You find yourself rather liking the idea.<br/>
<br/>
"Then they get embarrassed. They can stand to get knocked down a peg."<br/>
<br/>
"It makes sense," Kali muses. "Though I'd like to speak to Charles about it first."<br/>
<br/>
"Who's in charge of his training?" Rick asks. "Besides, we <i>always</i> have to match wits with each other as part of the training. He can get an early start against two of his peers.<br/>
<br/>
"What do <i>you</i> think, child?"<br/>
<br/>
"I'd like to see them again," you say, not wanting to admit to the sense of excitement it gives you.<br/>
<br/>
"You wouldn't be seeing them under your own face," Rick repeats. "You'd go incognito. They'd never even know you were in town, not until after you were back here."<br/>
<br/>
<i>Probably that would be safest. Frank in particular might not like the joke.</i> "Yeah, I'll do it," you say aloud.<br/>
<br/>
"How much do they know about what you can do?" Miko asks. "It's not fair if they're totally clueless."<br/>
<br/>
"If the squirt here manages to keep his head down, no one except us will ever know what he can do. So it's fair if his friends aren't ready for him."<br/>
<br/>
"What do you mean, 'no one except us'?" Miko asks in a harsh tone. "If you're thinking of keeping this brat here a secret from--"<br/>
<br/>
"<i>Us,</i>" says Rick impatiently. "All of us. <i>Obviously.</i>" Miko just snorts again, but Rick raises an eyebrow at you. "But what about it, squirt? You been telling the kid and his brother tales out of your school room?"<br/>
<br/>
"No, not really," you say. "I've just told them I've been studying, getting a handle on things."<br/>
<br/>
It's true; you've exchanged a few emails with Joe and even spoken to him on the phone maybe a dozen times since coming to LA, but you've always hedged away from details. You've not spoken to Frank at all. <br/>
<br/>
"It'll be easy then, won't it, squirt?" Rick says with a faint but cynical smile. You can only swallow and shrug. "So which one do you wanna hit first?"<br/>
<br/>
"Let me think about it?"<br/>
<br/>
"Sure. We gotta get you a proper set of identification anyway. I'll get that set up for you tomorrow."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You and the others eat, and then Rick leaves for the night. You do some more studying, but before you retire for your nightly meditation session, Kali stops you. "I want you to pay special attention to any dreams or experiences you have tonight," she says. "Rick is being rather blasé about this business he's proposed. He's treating it as little more than a lark. But you have history with those you'll be seeing."<br/>
<br/>
"You think there's some danger," you ask. You trust Kali absolutely, and there's no skepticism in your question.<br/>
<br/>
"No, not necessarily. But your <i>ousiarch</i> may have something to show you. I rather wish you had meditated <i>before</i> making decision."<br/>
<br/>
"I can still take it back," you say.<br/>
<br/>
"The fact that you agreed with such alacrity suggests to me you can't," she says. "Or perhaps that you <i>won't.</i> You told me on your first night that you had 'drifted' here. But I do not have the impression that you are <i>drifting</i> back. Pay special attention."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Nothing odd happens during your meditation session, except that you are possibly more active than usual. Often, your meditation merely puts you under the lunar disc and relaxes you. Other times you find yourself running along that web in the sky. Such is what happens tonight, and when you come back you feel as though you've been on a hard but invigorating cross-country run. Your arm is heavy as you brush your teeth, and your legs stiff as you crawl into bed.<br/>
<br/>
At some point during the night you dream, and you write it down for Kali, even though it remains vividly with you after you awake. Once more you find yourself with the Moon, and in the presence of the family of planets. But tonight the pageantry is at rest, though it still hums with a relaxed energy. But as you watch, the Moon separates, like an amoeba, into two independent but full discs. It continues to separate, until there are nine bright, white mirrors. They move slowly, each into a conjunction with another planet. There they hang, dimly reflecting the splendor of their brethren. You watch for a long time, unsure whether you are supposed to move yourself, or where. Finally, the vision fades.<br/>
<br/>
Kali says nothing about it the next day at lunch, and her manner suggests she finds nothing disturbing in it. Nor does it leave you with a sense of foreboding.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Rick shows up at around three, fumbling with Miko's iPhone. "Had to bend her over hard to get it off her," he grumbles. "You know how to use one of these things?"<br/>
<br/>
"What are you trying to do?"<br/>
<br/>
"Get a picture of you. When you and me start working in earnest together, I'll teach you how to make them yourself. For now though-- Well, whose face are you going to use, squirt? You got a couple to pick from."<br/>
<br/>
"Nick Stevenson," you say after a moment's thought. "I don't have the wardrobe for--"<br/>
<br/>
"Fine. What name?"<br/>
<br/>
"Nick Cognito?"<br/>
<br/>
"Don't be cute, unless you wanna do a striptease at the airport."<br/>
<br/>
"Nick Prescott? No, Nick Martin. That's my middle name."<br/>
<br/>
"What's your new middle name?"<br/>
<br/>
"William?" you suggest with a shrug.<br/>
<br/>
"Okay, show him to me. Up against that wall there."<br/>
<br/>
You lean back and close your eyes and summon the image; your clothes tighten a little against your frame, and the floor looks a little farther away when you open them again. Rick takes a couple of shots, and huddles with you to study the results.<br/>
<br/>
"Guy takes a good picture," Rick says. You agree. Your eyes are clear and calm; your nose narrow but strong, like your face; lips slightly ticked up at the corners in a relaxed smile; brown hair in a something sort of like a buzz cut. You briefly flex a firm bicep.<br/>
<br/>
"We'll use my temp address and contact info," Rick says. "We don't want to link you to Kali or Miko. What's your biography?"<br/>
<br/>
"Can't we use his," you say slightly startle yourself with the depth and resonance of your voice. "He's a bartender, trying to pay back student debts while looking for a position in law enforcement or legal work."<br/>
<br/>
"Nicely nondescript," Rick agrees. "I'll be back in a couple of hours with a complete set of documents for you. Pack light. And figure out where you're going. You'll be leaving early in the morning."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
"Early" means an eighty-thirty departure, and Kali and Miko drive you out to the airport. "Aren't you handsome," the latter says with a satirical smile when you come out of the bedroom. You flash Nick's most winning smile at her, but she doesn't react further.<br/>
<br/>
They give you a boarding pass and an envelope with two hundred dollars in cash, and drop you off out front. You've been in Los Angeles for a month, but even after all the crowed events you suddenly feel like you stepped off the plane from Saratoga Falls only yesterday.<br/>
<br/>
As for where you're going ...<br/>
<br/>
You've meditated on that, weighing each alternative. Joe, it appears, will not be leaving Saratoga Falls anytime soon. He's been occupied with sorting out the looted remains of Blackwell's library while keeping an eye cocked for the magician's return. As recently as last week he'd been grumbling about feeling trapped, and wanting to get on to a new job, but you've not heard any more from him. Presumably he's found a nice distraction in partying while Frank's away, and it should be easy to get close to him, for Joe can't resist a pretty face. Lauren might be a little old for him, but you bet you could find a younger girl to tempt him. And Rick had set no time limit for the Saratoga Falls mission.<br/>
<br/>
It's quite different for the other: "Forty-eight hours, squirt," Rick had said. "Let's see how you do under a deadline. Get back on the return leg, with or without the cadet's face." That would be tough enough, but Frank will be under the roof of another <i>Stellae</i>: the mysterious and rather frightening-sounding Margaret Dillon. You suspect <i>that</i> mission would be easier to accomplish if you had Joe's <i>imago</i> on hand, for a more plausible infiltration. But Rick would be more impressed if you pulled it off without that crutch.<br/>
<br/>
And so, after careful thought, and examination of various ploys that might be used on each job, you had decided to ...</span></div></div>


path: 1122111111122211221111222121211211212112212121121211121221121221111212122
author_id: seuzz
title: A Fishing Expedition
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>It would definitely be easier to filch Frank's <i>imago</i> if you were looking like another <i>Stellae.</i> That's why yesterday evening you snuck out of Kali's apartment and ...<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
<i>Previous evening. 20:13</i> The taxi drops you off in front of the hotel where Rick is staying. It's seen better days, though the Art Deco grooves and cornices still give it a certain shabby style. But the Luxe Earle is now just a way station for transients, offering low weekly rates to the hard-knock class. Rick doesn't need or want anything better.<br/>
<br/>
You still have his <i>imago</i>--complete with old memories--inside you, but you need his clothes to pull off an imitation. Nothing would scream "fake Rick" like a Rick who showed up wearing anything that didn't smell like Limburger aged in old gym shoes. You'd touched lightly at his memories, only enough to find that he has three of everything--sports coat, t-shirt, slacks, shoes, socks and underwear--which he cycles through until even he can't stand the stink anymore. By now it's only that stink holding the threads together, so he stints on water and detergent, returning his wardrobe to a fragrant state that would only choke a wharf rat rather than kill it outright. <br/>
<br/>
There is a chance he will miss a set and guess what happened to it, but he never looks at his clothes until he needs to change out a suit, and he's actually been smelling a little better recently. You'll just have to take a chance.<br/>
<br/>
<i>20:17</i> The elevator--smelling of piss--opens, depositing you on the fourteenth floor.  He's in 1411. You pull his lockpicking skills out of your "memorandum book", and also pull out the small tool set you'd bought on the way over. You put your ear to the door for a listen. He said he'd be "going out", so you hope he's not here. If he is, and he catches you-- Well, he probably won't be pissed, and might even loan you part of his wardrobe. But you want to be able to gloat to him afterward.<br/>
<br/>
Lucky it's a cheap door, for you've just got your ear to it when you hear a muffled voice within: "What?" You rocket to the side and press against the wall, and as the door yanks open throw your cloak across the doorway. Rick's head pops through-- And you catch him.<br/>
<br/>
He looks up and down the hallway, and right at you. His nostrils flare and his eyes glitter. He leans out a little further, but takes no further notice of you. He's shirtless.<br/>
<br/>
He steps back inside but leaves the door open. You creep around to look inside. It's dark, but he's inside the doorway, and has just snapped some underwear on. Otherwise he's naked.<br/>
<br/>
You never thought a human body could have so many scars, or that they could come in such interesting shapes. You look away he steps back into the hallway, crouching low and sweeping his arms around.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Does he suspect it's you?</i><br/>
<br/>
You drop to the floor and carefully and quietly waddle around him, dodging his hands. Inside the room, you creep on all fours. Off to the side you see a dim shape that might be a head, so you throw the cloak over it, and then spread it a little farther out for good measure. You inch over to hide in a corner.<br/>
<br/>
<i>20:19</i> Rick returns from recon and flips on a dim light. Miko Toyotomi, naked to the waist, sits up. "What was it?" she asks, and her own eyes gleam.<br/>
<br/>
Your heart nearly explodes, but you make no noise.<br/>
<br/>
"Dunno," Rick says. He slowly sweeps the room with his eyes. "You hear anything?"<br/>
<br/>
"No."<br/>
<br/>
"Probably just a stray current, then."<br/>
<br/>
"Oh God, Rick, if you're going to--"<br/>
<br/>
"Squirt gave me a look this afternoon," Rick says. "I didn't like it."<br/>
<br/>
Miko stares, and bolts upright with bared teeth. Her hand darts out, and suddenly she's got that katana. "I fucking swear, Rick, if he's in here I'll--"<br/>
<br/>
"And I'll hold him down while you do it. Hear that, squirt? Door closes when I count to twenty. You better be on the other side of it, or I ain't responsible for the consequences. One, two--"<br/>
<br/>
You almost make the dash, but instead tuck up very small and hold your breath.<br/>
<br/>
"--twenty." Rick closes the door, and visibly relaxes. "Okay, where were we?"<br/>
<br/>
"You were threatening to impale the--"<br/>
<br/>
"No, <i>you</i> were threatening to--"<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, fuck the little-- <i>I'm</i> the one you want to--"<br/>
<br/>
Rick leaps onto the sofa; their anatomies collide with a soft thud. "How hot's it in Little Tokyo?" he asks.<br/>
<br/>
"There's a tsunami coming!"<br/>
<br/>
"Lemme just run out my little rickshaw."<br/>
<br/>
"Harpoon me, Rick!"<br/>
<br/>
<i>20:20</i> You cover your ears and, with eyes averted, tiptoe as quietly as you can into the bedroom. But even with your hands clapped to the sides of your head, you can hear Rick wheezing and puffing like an asthmatic steam shovel. <i>The only thing worse than catching Rick in mid-coitus,</i> you think with a shudder, <i>would be having to materialize and help Miko revive him after a mid-coitus heart attack.</i><br/>
<br/>
You risk attracting attention by pushing the bedroom door to, and feel your way to the bed. As you suspected, Rick uses your own clothes management system, and you feel along the floor until you've got one of everything, including shoes. You slip them into the bag you've slung over your shoulder.<br/>
<br/>
<i>20:22</i> A creak from the outer room alerts you, and you throw out another fold of cloak just in case they've slipped the first, but when the door shudders open neither of your colleagues would be able to see you anyway. Rick is staggering along with Miko wrapped about his torso, face pressed to his and sucking hungrily. Your mentor takes three steps forward, one step sideways, two back, and four forward. You try dancing out of his way, your face a rictus of terror. He lurches forward, and for one terrified moment you think he's going to drop Miko directly on you, but he lunges to the side at the last second and throws her on the bed. He jumps on top of her and lets out a long, low howl, which after a minute she mimics with a giggle; and then he howls again, and she's howling with him-- <br/>
<br/>
And then the neighbors start banging on the wall. But it doesn't stop them.<br/>
<br/>
<i>20:24</i> Your footsteps muffled by all the noise, you make it out the bedroom and the hotel room and the hotel front entrance with an alacrity Joe Durras would find hard to match.<br/>
<br/>
<i>22:20</i> "How was the movie?" Kali asks as Miko comes in the door.<br/>
<br/>
"Pff. Rick snored all the way through it."<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, did he go with you? I thought you were going alone."<br/>
<br/>
"I ran into him on the way out and invited him along because you're always telling me to be nicer to him. And next time you can just shoot me instead of giving me advice."<br/>
<br/>
"But he slept through it? What did you see?"<br/>
<br/>
Miko just stares, then strides through the living room. "I'll be taking a bath."<br/>
<br/>
Kali returns to her book. "Odd that Miko had nothing to say to you, child," she says without lifting her eyes. "Considering the rude way you were staring at her with your mouth open."<br/>
<br/>
"I guess she really wants that bath."<br/>
<br/>
"Mm."<br/>
<br/>
No, it wasn't odd that she'd ignored you, since you'd thrown your cloak over the door as soon as you saw the handle jiggle.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
The flight to London is uneventful, and you are able to get a little bit of sleep. You're not refreshed, exactly, when you wake, but you're alert enough as you let Nick Martin's mind guide you through the intricacies of renting a car, and drive out to Oxford. You pull off the road a few miles out and, with vast reluctance, make your change from him to--<br/>
<br/>
Rick Bredon. You shudder and retch as greasy, filthy hair falls into your face. A terrible, grinding ache washes all over you, and your mouth feels like sandpaper. Your temples pound. You ball up your dry, scaly fists and push them into your eyes. As bad as Rick looks on the outside, it's nothing to what it feels like to be inside him.<br/>
<br/>
Your shoulders hunch in another shudder, and you wheel to look in the backseat. <i>The thing--</i> But there's nothing there. You brush your dry lips with an even drier tongue. You flinch around and look again. <i>They're gone!</i> But that doesn't make you feel better. It makes you feel infinitely worse. If they're going to swim around you, you want to see them. Not knowing where they've got to, what they're doing-- You tremble hard.<br/>
<br/>
Of course you know what the problem is. They are there, but though you've Rick's mind and body, you haven't his senses--the <i>Stellae</i> skill--that lets you glimpse them and brush them away. You are blind, insensible. You are a man adrift in an open boat on the hot sea as sharks and kraken and shoggoths and things even worse brush along just below the inky surface of the water.<br/>
<br/>
Slowly you master yourself, start the car, and drive carefully on to Oxford. You hope you're crushing lots of them under the wheels.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * *</div><br/>
Margaret Dillon lives in a detached villa behind a low wall. You frown a little over the car parked on the gravel out front; she does not often have visitors, and you are wary as you knock on the door. <br/>
<br/>
You aren't at all prepared for the giant who tears it open. "Rick!" Fyodor exclaims in a tremendous voice. "Such a surprise!" He throws his arms around you.<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, yeah," you grumble and push him away. "Same here."<br/>
<br/>
He laughs. "You thought I'd be in the thick of it? Don't you trust our boys?" He slaps your back. "Perhaps not. Why else would you come?" But as if answering his own question, he suddenly frowns. "Or is it Margaret you came to see?"</span></div></div>


path: 11221111111222112211112221212112112121122121211212111212211212211112121222
author_id: seuzz
title: Squashed!
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>"Don't you trust our boys?" Fyodor slaps your back. "Perhaps not. Why else would you come?" But as if answering his own question, he suddenly frowns. "Or is it Margaret you came to see?"<br/>
<br/>
<i>Our boys? Trust?</i> You suddenly see the flaw in your plan, and the Rick Bredon inside your skull seethes with contempt. <br/>
<br/>
You copied his <i>imago</i> almost a month ago and simply assumed it would be enough to carry you through an imposture. For who else would be with Margaret but Frank? But it appears that circumstances in Oxford have evolved over the last few weeks. Fyodor Chernomyrdin--who with Margaret Dillon and Charles Brennan himself is one of the three most senior <i>Stellae</i>--is here. Why? The Rick back in LA would know, and you doubt you can bluff your way through.<br/>
<br/>
But you have to try. "How is Margaret," you ask. You put your hand on Fyodor to press him aside--<br/>
<br/>
Which would be like pushing aside the Urals.<br/>
<br/>
--and glance carefully around. Your skin crawls. <i>They are here. Even Margaret Dillon's abode isn't free of them, though few of them of them can survive long within her walls, and the ones that do survive have so little to do with our world that they are scarcely worth minding.</i> But you cannot see them.<br/>
<br/>
But you feign satisfaction as you step into the house. It is dark and silent. Not a watchful silence or a pregnant silence or an empty silence. It is the silence of hands clasped and heads bowed; the only sound--which can only be heard through the spirit, not the senses--is of wood twisting as it tries to both kneel and lift itself skyward. "What was that?"<br/>
<br/>
"I said she'll bury us all. You have things in your ears?"<br/>
<br/>
"I was listening to something else. You got something to drink? I spent seven hours in coach over water."<br/>
<br/>
"How desperate are you to see Margaret?" Fyodor asks with a knowing smile. "If you wanted a drink you should have stopped someplace first."<br/>
<br/>
Another tremble passes through you. You are almost deranged with fear--fear of things you can't see, that might at any moment throw a tentacle over your shoulder and drag you into the corpse-swollen abyss of the ocean--and can barely think straight to improvise.  "You're right," you say, following the line of least resistance. "I need to see Margaret."<br/>
<br/>
Fyodor takes you by the shoulders and stares gravely into your eyes. "I see it is bad with you, Rick. Our little grandmother, I hope she can be gentle with you."<br/>
<br/>
You hope so too. For the thought of facing Margaret Dillon in a lie now fills you with more terror than the shapeless, invisible things of the earth and air.<br/>
<br/>
Fyodor guides you to her parlor door and gently knocks. Without waiting for a reply, he opens it. You hesitate, and he pushes you in.<br/>
<br/>
Naturally, you know what to expect, and none of it surprises you. The atmosphere, so deep and thick it is like being at the bottom of an oceanic trench; the dim, almost submarine light; the liquid heat pouring from the fireplace. Your vision swims and sweat breaks out all over your body. There's a pounding in your ears. <i>Is this what a heart attack feels like?</i> No, it always feels like this when you step into Margaret's parlor. The air buckles around you. The only consolation you have is that <i>none</i> of the things that scuttle like Darwin's drowned off-casts can survive here. You are completely safe in this room.<br/>
<br/>
Or you would be, if it weren't for the tiny woman, herself bent nearly in half with age, who sits in the enormous armchair.<br/>
<br/>
You look at her. She turns her head from the fire. Eyes magnified into saucers by enormous spectacles catch you in their depths.<br/>
<br/>
For the briefest of moments you can withstand her. <br/>
<br/>
And then a weight like a cast iron tub--one filled with the Pacific Ocean--slams onto your shoulders. Your ankles, knees, spine and neck instantly snap. Your chin slams into your toes. For a millionth of a second your skull holds off the pressures of Lurga before it implodes. It has already crushed your brain into a stain of jelly.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You open your eyes, then open them wider with a start. Fyodor is peering closely into your face. He smiles warmly as you gape back at him. "Here," he says, and hands you a small glass filled with a clear liquid. "Drink."<br/>
<br/>
You sniff at it. Odorless. You sip a little, and sip a little more, and swallow it all. Odorless and tasteless. Well, not entirely without taste. There's a slight burning ...<br/>
<br/>
It slides down your throat, and then you do cough and choke. But not badly.<br/>
<br/>
Fyodor grins. "Do you like it? Let me join you!" He fills your glass from a clear bottle, and fills one of his own. He raises it. "Your health, Vasili!" <br/>
<br/>
You drink. It's strong and smooth and pleasant once you get it down the pipes, though the fumes, when they rise up the back of your throat to tickle your nose, aren't quite as odorless as the liquid that went down. Fyodor smacks his lips, and slaps you hard on the knee. "That is good! Do you feel better?"<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah," you croak. "I do." <i>I thought I was dead,</i> you don't say aloud.<br/>
<br/>
Your mind is a little muzzy though. You look around to find yourself sprawled on a big leather couch. The roof is low and the room dark. You raise up a little. <i>That door. It looks familiar.</i> Oh yeah, that's the door to Margaret's parlor. There's the front door over there. Why does everything seem so unfamiliar? It was perfectly familiar when you came in. Of course, you were looking at it through Rick's eyes--<br/>
<br/>
<i>Rick's eyes.</i> Your own eyes widen. <i>You can't sense his </i>imago<i> around you.</i><br/>
<br/>
Fyodor bursts out laughing and slaps you on the knee again. "The vodka is finally working. I had to get a special dispensation from the little grandmother before she would let me bring it in, but I knew it would work! Is your head clear now, Vasili? I mean, <i>William?</i>" He grins.<br/>
<br/>
You swallow. "You know who I am?" He laughs again, so hard that the light fixture in the ceiling trembles. "I didn't mean-- I wasn't trying to--"<br/>
<br/>
"What?" Fyodor's expression is almost frighteningly mirthful.<br/>
<br/>
"Look, you can call Rick. He's at Kali's, in Los Angeles. He'll tell you all about it. He gave me the mission--"<br/>
<br/>
"Mission?" Fyodor's expression changes with sudden violence to one of puzzlement, even anger. "He sent you to join the boys?"<br/>
<br/>
"Uh-- I don't know what you're talking about, sir." You don't even notice the way the honorific has slipped in. "Rick gave me a mission. I was supposed to come to England, to Oxford, and--"<br/>
<br/>
"But he didn't send you join <i>my</i> boys on their assignment?"<br/>
<br/>
"No sir. I don't know anything about that."<br/>
<br/>
And just as suddenly his merry mood returns. "So tell me about this mission, William." He slaps your knee again; one more blow and you'll have a limp. "Don't be so tongue-tied."<br/>
<br/>
"I guess you know about me, sir," you gasp. "I'm William Prescott. The, uh, the newest <i>Stellae?</i>" He nods impatiently. "I don't know what they've told you about me--"<br/>
<br/>
"So tell me yourself!" he cries. He raises his hand to give your knee another slap, but lowers it when you flinch away. "I like a good story." A great twinkle comes into his eye, and he leans forward, his chin cupped in his hand, to listen to your tale.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
And you tell him everything. You would tell him more. You have never had an audience like this. He hangs, rapt on every word, and tugs more out with quick, demanding questions. But soon he doesn't have to tug. You're just talking rapidly, even joyfully, and his features light up as you become more animated. You feel like you could tell this man anything, confident in the knowledge that nothing you say will be held against you, but will be weighed with generosity and charity and love. It's almost like Joe's "veritas touch," but without the sense of compulsion, for you <i>want</i> to tell him everything, and soon his interjections aren't being made to solicit information from you, but to channel your voluntary confessions away from the voluminous biography you would cheerfully dictate to him.<br/>
<br/>
It's with a feeling of anti-climax that you draw to a close with your arrival at Margaret's, and your collapse inside her parlor, for you'd like to go on talking. But Fyodor takes over at that point. "Yes. She called me when you fell. Rick's face had fallen from you too. We both knew who you were, of course. We only argued whether I could give you a good Russian welcome when you returned. Ha!" He slaps his chest. "First time in thirty years I got the better of her!" His expression falters a tiny bit. "I wonder what that means."<br/>
<br/>
"What happened to me in there?"<br/>
<br/>
"Hm? Oh." He smiles. "It is very dangerous to try fooling the little grandmother. Very foolish, too." He shakes an admonishing finger in your face. "But you didn't know any better. What is the expression? 'Truth will out'? Truth always outs in Margaret's parlor. In your case--" He laughs. "It outed like toothpaste from a tube!"<br/>
<br/>
"Well, I didn't mean any malice, sir--"<br/>
<br/>
"Of course not! You are an apprentice on an exercise."<br/>
<br/>
"But I guess you can call Rick and tell him I failed." You sigh and lower your eyes.<br/>
<br/>
"Why would I do that?" <br/>
<br/>
"Because I failed. I was supposed to get Frank's <i>imago</i> without being detected."<br/>
<br/>
He raises that admonishing finger again. "Without being detected by <i>Giuseppe,</i> you said."<br/>
<br/>
"But I still got detected."<br/>
<br/>
"By me," Fyodor says. "And I'm not Giuseppe."<br/>
<br/>
You choke a little in surprise.<br/>
<br/>
"You think I would spoil a tremendous joke? <i>I'm</i> not going to tell him." He winks hugely at you.</span></div></div>


path: 112211111112221122111122212121121121211221212112121112122112122111121212221
author_id: seuzz
title: The Revolutionary Underground
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>You'll have to tell Rick everything anyway, when you make your report, and he'll probably knock off a letter grade if he doesn't flunk you outright for muffing it in Margaret's parlor. But you'd still rather return with Frank's <i>imago</i> instead of cutting it short. "Where is Frank," you ask Fyodor. "You keep talking about 'the boys'--"<br/>
<br/>
Fyodor points at your face. "Didn't Rick know?"<br/>
<br/>
"All those memories were out of date by a month. I didn't even know <i>you'd</i> be here."<br/>
<br/>
"Ah. Well, Giuseppe is on a mission, with another one. My Hal."<br/>
<br/>
"Your who?"<br/>
<br/>
"My Hal. Hal Swann. I call him mine, though he belongs to no one but himself. He's at Cambridge, where there are dark doings. Giuseppe is helping."<br/>
<br/>
"I thought Frank came here to see Margaret."<br/>
<br/>
"He did, he did. It is his treatment. When you fall off the bear, you climb back on."<br/>
<br/>
"Is he going to be all right? What happened to him on his last mission, it was--"<br/>
<br/>
Fyodor snorts loudly, so that the light fixture shakes again. "He needs a good shaking is all." He screams something in Russian very loudly, and suddenly you're on your feet, standing rigidly at attention. "That's right," Fyodor says with a belligerent frown. "We have no time for feeling sorry for ourselves. Like at Kursk--"<br/>
<br/>
His eyes go bright and distant, and he unspools a long story, half in Russian and half in English, about a tank battle. You can't quite follow it, but it has something to do with tearing a hole through the German lines after three-quarters of your company is dead and you yourself are half dead from wounds and exhaustion. "And when it's over," he says grimly, and swallows half the remaining vodka. "Then you drink and resume marching."<br/>
<br/>
"Yes sir."<br/>
<br/>
He bowls you six feet to the side with a clap to your shoulder. "You've had your drink, Vasili. Now march. There's the door."<br/>
<br/>
"What do I--?"<br/>
<br/>
"Get out!" he screams, and you're through the door and at the rental car almost before you realize it.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You don't change clothes, but you do shift into Nick's form before setting out for Cambridge, and purchase a pint of cheap gin to help you get back into character on the other end. Halfway there, you stop at a pub, and in Rick's form nurse a beer while figuring out how to make the approach. You wish Fyodor had told you how much Rick knows about whatever business it is. But Rick likes to get the story from people anyway, so you can probably bluff it out of them. As for his knife, which you haven't got-- You hope it doesn't come up, but you think you know how you can handle it.<br/>
<br/>
The city and college are upon you long before you're ready. Or so it appears. Buildings old and new mingle next to each other on narrow, crooked streets, and you don't realize you've hit the University of Cambridge until you pass an open spot and glimpse an enormous Gothic pile nearby. <i>Fuck.</i> It's not like Keyserling back home, where the university keeps tidily to its own ground behind four broad avenues on each side. You nudge the car through crowds of cyclists and pedestrians until you find something that looks like a parking spot. After getting the motor off, you shove your bag under one of the seats, and while hunched over shift back into Rick's form.<br/>
<br/>
It's like being hit in the face with the ocean.<br/>
<br/>
You fumble for the liquor and swallow almost half of it before you realize what you've done. You wonder what it'll do to you. Rick uses it to deaden his fear of the things he can see, but you can't see them anyway; will the gin just make you drunk?<br/>
<br/>
You need to find Hal and Frank, but where in this insane labyrinth would they be? Rick could follow the trail they leave in that hidden realm, but you'll have to use his wits. And yours.<br/>
<br/>
So you stagger out the car and along the street, looking for an internet café. You'll have to try public records--phone listings and the like. But Hal likes to live off the grid, and Frank will be holing up with him. You do find a café, but after an hour of fruitless searching you have to lean back and come up with a Plan B.<br/>
<br/>
And a plan C and D and E.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
<i>Thump thump thump.</i> The pounding of your fist is like the pounding in your head. You finished the gin a few hours ago; it barely took the edge off, and now you're dry and cranky again. You'll have to hit another pub if <i>this</i> hunch doesn't pan out.<br/>
<br/>
The door opens a crack, then swings wide. A hand yanks you inside, and you're swept into a bear hug as the door slams again. "Rick! Bloody hell! What're you doing here?" Hal Swann releases you and pushes you back against the wall.<br/>
<br/>
"Had a hankering for fish and chips, thought I'd nip over." You blink in the dim hallway, and push Hal back as he tries to hug you again. You glance around, briefly but carefully. <i>Where are they? Where the fuck are they?</i> "How are you, Mac?"<br/>
<br/>
He shoves you in the shoulder. "When you gonna stop with the--"<br/>
<br/>
"When you stop with the--" You raise a clenched fist. "Wall's gone, Mac." You look him up and down: the fatigue jacket with the red armband, the ripped jeans flecked with paint, the black canvas sneakers, the frizzy, curly hair and perpetual three-day growth. "You wanna retro look, get you some velvet knee britches and one of them white wigs with the ponytail down the back. Where's the cadet?"<br/>
<br/>
But Hal just throws a friendly arm around your neck and pulls you down a flight of steps. "G'wan and razz me, Rick.  I know you're one of us. Running guns to the Loyalists--"<br/>
<br/>
"I'm not that old, Mac."<br/>
<br/>
"--fighting in the Resistance--"<br/>
<br/>
"Working for insurance companies."<br/>
<br/>
"Gnawing at the corrupted roots of the parasite oppressors." He shoves you into a basement apartment, closes the door behind, and grins wickedly. "Don't be too sure I'm as crooked as I'm supposed to be, shweet'art" he lisps in the worst Sam Spade imitation you've ever heard.<br/>
<br/>
You look around. It's narrow and grubby and piled with exactly the junk you'd expect a Catilindrian/Kenandandran to nest in. Scrap metal, busted machinery, broken keyboards. A sink that looks like it's been repaired with parts from a vacuum cleaner. A red flag with a picture of a coal pit droops on a crumbling wall. "Martha Stewart weeps," you mutter.<br/>
<br/>
"Thirsty?" he asks.<br/>
<br/>
You drop the empty gin bottle onto the mess. "A little old lady in a black bonnet and wagon rolled by a few days ago. I'm hitching a ride. Trying to." You rub an eye. "So keep your voice at a civilized level and give me the lay of things."<br/>
<br/>
"Fyodor sent you?"<br/>
<br/>
"He spun me around and shoved in your direction. I followed the signs. You ain't quite as underground as you think you are, Mac."<br/>
<br/>
His eyes freeze. "Frank," he spits. "Knew the lads would--"<br/>
<br/>
"Lads?" you ask sharply.<br/>
<br/>
"My school. Hearts in the right place, none truer." He clenches his fist and grins. "But for this job," he adds with a shrug, "just the usual pack of useful idiots."<br/>
<br/>
"I <i>will</i> need a drink if you don't start making sense."<br/>
<br/>
"What's Fyodor told you?"<br/>
<br/>
"About everything between Moscow and Kursk. You give it to me, Mac." You shove aside some plates of half-eaten noodles and drop heavily onto an unkempt bed. "Without the cheese and red sauce."<br/>
<br/>
"Oh." He looks disappointed.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
"So you've got the cadet wormed into it."<br/>
<br/>
"Only the superstructure. They already got the girl." Hal looks unhappy, but his eyes flash with determination. "We'll take 'em down. Smash them like--" He stops at the look you give him. "But Frank's got his ears open. Pretty sure we know the top guy. Locally, I mean. Just the tip of a tentacle, 'course. We'll tease it, tickle it, follow it back to the head and beak and eye--"<br/>
<br/>
"<i>Don't</i> ... talk about shellfish and squid, Mac. Not while I'm going around unfortified."<br/>
<br/>
"Least we can do for the memory of the girl. Squash the brain and not just-- Sorry."<br/>
<br/>
You grunt. "So handle the local boys. How hard can it be to put the squeeze on a bunch of water lilies?"<br/>
<br/>
"D'you know how big a rower is?" Hal asks, his eyes wide. "Frank's one of the smaller lads. Only got on 'cos--" He flexes one of his puny biceps.<br/>
<br/>
"I thought you said they let him join because your lads busted some of their arms."<br/>
<br/>
"That gave us the opening, Frank chatted them up afterward. And he's not on the team, not officially. Just practicing with 'em as a favor."<br/>
<br/>
"They're not going to spill anything in front of him, Mac."<br/>
<br/>
Hal folds his arms, frowns, and falls onto the bed to glare at you. "What do you suggest, Rick, since you're full of criticisms," he says in a hurt voice.<br/>
<br/>
"I thought you Bolshies went in for criticism," you retort. Hal reddens. "If the cadet can bust their wrists, he can hold one of 'em down and squeeze 'em until they bleat."<br/>
<br/>
"Knowledge is power, but we know the local scene. It's that tentacle we want. Grab it, trace it to the brain."<br/>
<br/>
"Oh! You want to infiltrate the higher ups. You weren't clear on <i>that,</i> Mac."<br/>
<br/>
He rolls his eyes.<br/>
<br/>
You smile to yourself privately. If it's an infiltration they want, <i>you</i> can give them that. Of course, it would mean abandoning your own training exercise and telling them who you are.</span></div></div>


path: 1122111111122211221111222121211211212112212121121211121221121221111212122211
author_id: seuzz
title: Tinker, Tailor, Socialist, Spy
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>"Lucky for you I showed up when I did," you say. "You got a working phone in this place?" Hal takes out a cell. "Call the Red Army. Tell 'im you just hooked up with Will Prescott."<br/>
<br/>
"Who's he?"<br/>
<br/>
"Alias I'm traveling under."<br/>
<br/>
"Why are you--"<br/>
<br/>
"Just do it, Mac."<br/>
<br/>
He looks at you with a puzzled expression as he calls Fyodor. The conversation is in Russian, so you can't understand it (except for "Will Prescott" and "Rick" and "Frank"), even though you can also hear Fyodor's booming voice. As they talk, Hal's face turns dark, then astonished, then skeptical, and finally collapses in bewilderment as he shuts off the phone. "You're Will Prescott?" he says.<br/>
<br/>
Your turn your palms upward and shut your eyes. In the darkness you pluck Nick Martin's <i>imago</i> back on. "This is the face I used to get out here," you say. Hal stares, bug-eyed. "If you want, I can show you a girl named Lauren Roos. Another guy I'm calling 'Angel.' Oh yeah, and Miko Toyotomi if you--"<br/>
<br/>
"You can make yourself up like Miko?" he says in a throttled shriek, and scrambles back a few inches, blinking furiously, like he's trying to process several terabytes of information all at once.<br/>
<br/>
"I can't really do her personality anymore, not like I can do Rick's. So relax. If you want to see 'Will Prescott'--"<br/>
<br/>
<i>Shit. He'll never take you seriously if you let him see your real face. But you've already discarded your other aliases in front of him.</i><br/>
<br/>
"Well, even this face isn't really me. Not anymore. But--" Again, you close your eyes, and pluck at the <i>imago.</i> "This is more or less the face I came with."<br/>
<br/>
Hal gnaws on his knuckles, and his eyes glint. "What Fane wouldn't give to have you on one of their slabs," he says softly.<br/>
<br/>
"Who?"<br/>
<br/>
"Guys in back of it all. I think. Back of almost everything else." He scrambles up and puts a finger to your cheek. "Can I touch?"<br/>
<br/>
"You already are."<br/>
<br/>
He make a low whistle. He jumps off the bed, hurls away some debris, and searches the floor underneath. "Just stretch out there a minute," he says as he pulls out a toolbox whose top doesn't match its bottom. "I wanna--"<br/>
<br/>
"I thought you said <i>Fane</i> would pay anything to put me on a slab."<br/>
<br/>
He raises up to stare at you. "Right." He slides the toolbox back where he got it. "So. Fyodor said you're here to--?"<br/>
<br/>
"Rick has me on a training exercise. I'm supposed to get a copy of Frank's <i>imago</i> without him knowing it. I've got thirty-six hours."<br/>
<br/>
"Why are you telling me this?"<br/>
<br/>
You hesitate. "Because you guys are in the middle of a job, and I don't want to screw anything up. In fact, I'd kind of like to help. Didn't you say you wanted to infiltrate the rowing team, whatever group is behind it?"<br/>
<br/>
Hal's mouth drops open, and he sucks in his breath and punches the air. "The people! United! Shall never be--!"<br/>
<br/>
"So you want my help?"<br/>
<br/>
He kicks a pipe at the window, shattering the loosely hanging blinds, which clatter to the sill below. One of the cords yanks tight, pulling another cord that stretches across the ceiling. You turn at a scratching sound from a shelf above. The cord is connected to the switch of an ancient Victrola; the needle drops and a platter spins. The sound is tinny, dusty, and muffled, but you recognize the tune that blares from the horn: The Marseillaise. <br/>
<br/>
Hal pulls you to your feet and claps his arm around your shoulder. Tears in his eyes, he begins to shout, rather than sing, along.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Over the next hour Hal questions you closely about all manner of topics: your history, your training, the mechanisms by which your prodigies work, leaping from one to the other in a manner that may seem logical to him but which seems utterly haphazard to you. He brushes off your suggestion that you call Frank and bring him out. "Can't have him here. Me and the lads been harassin' the rowers, Frank shows up-- And there's the lads to think of, too. One look at Frank and they'd all scream <i>nark!</i>"<br/>
<br/>
When you're done he takes you out, after first insisting that you change into another form for reasons he refuses to explain. He vetoes Rick and Nick, and Lauren won't fit in Rick's clothes, so you settle on "Angel", the rather squat and swarthy face you got after merging a couple of your other LA-acquired looks. That satisfies Hal--he calls it an "honest, proletarian face from the immiserated, colonized masses"--and guides you out after first jiggling with a lot of wires and strings around the doorway.<br/>
<br/>
He takes you deep inside the university to one of the more modern-looking buildings. The corridors are a labyrinth, especially those in the sub-level, and it's in a dank little lab that you wind up. Hal pulls out an overhead projector and throws its light on the screen. Somehow he gets it hooked up to his cell phone, which he uses as a kind of control pad for it.<br/>
<br/>
He has you place your palm on the glass and bring up your sigils, which the projector then throws on the screen. For another hour he has you go through them, and asks a lot clipped questions about them. "What's this one," he asks about the fuzziest of the lot. <br/>
<br/>
"Oh," you say, and your throat constricts. "That one, uh, it makes a golem."<br/>
<br/>
"A what?"<br/>
<br/>
"You know, the clay statue in old legends? Like a magic robot?"<br/>
<br/>
Hal's head swings between you and the projected sigil. "How do they work?" Your description of them as seemingly sentient slaves leaves Hal green with nausea and red with choler. "Fane would tear this one outta you in a heartbeat. <i>Fuck the proletariat,</i> that's their attitude. Not that I'm a Luddite, you know, automation has its place, but--"<br/>
<br/>
"It wouldn't do them any good," you say. "It's locked."<br/>
<br/>
"Locked?"<br/>
<br/>
"I have to unlock the sigils before I can use them. Activate them, or something. It takes some concentration, and I have to execute them. I'd have to make a golem of my own before it would clear up to be permanently usable."<br/>
<br/>
"Small mercies. That's the last of them?"<br/>
<br/>
"That's the last I can show you. There's lots more--" His head swings back around. "But they're hidden behind that one." You nod at the golem sigil. "At least, I assume so. That's the way the <i>Libra</i> works. You have to execute a spell before you can turn the page to get to the next one. I think it's the same with me. I have to make a golem before I can get to the next sigil."<br/>
<br/>
"You know what the next one can do?"<br/>
<br/>
"Yes," you say quietly. "And I will <i>never</i> use it."<br/>
<br/>
Hal's eyebrows arch, but he doesn't press. "Okay. Right. Take me back to that custom one, the one that-- Yeah, that one." You've shifted to the sigil that knocks people out. "Magnify it, focus in on-- Wow. The control you have over these things, Prescott," he mutters, for you've magnified it tenfold. "Wish <i>I</i> could scribble on you. You'd make a brilliant work pad. Okay, this little bit here--" He points at one of the tiny sigils that makes up a larger sigil that in turn makes up the sigil as a whole. "You know what that is?"<br/>
<br/>
"Um ..."<br/>
<br/>
"It's a function. Takes as input the phase state of the mask. Or your hand in this case. You was clever, isolating this string, but you've got a real mess in here. Oh, well, it works, and who am I to complain about untidiness. But yeah. Takes as input the state of the mask and as output generates a consciousness suppressor."<br/>
<br/>
"And in English that means--"<br/>
<br/>
"Touch someone with it, knocks them out." <br/>
<br/>
"So why didn't you say so?"<br/>
<br/>
"I did. Can you fiddle with these things? The binding sigils are elastic--"<br/>
<br/>
"Sure. I can--"<br/>
<br/>
"Good. Change that function sigil to this." He takes out a marker, and directly on the screen scribbles a new sigil over the old. You concentrate, and adjust it. "Brilliant!" He turns to you with a grin.<br/>
<br/>
"What did I do?"<br/>
<br/>
"Nothing. Just attained nuclear capability, that's all. It's a variable now. Just concentrate and you can change it, insert any value you want."<br/>
<br/>
"English, Hal."<br/>
<br/>
"You want to knock someone out for ten minutes? Bring up the sigil and think 'ten minutes' before you touch them. Twenty-four hours? Think 'twenty four hours'. Ten days? Think--"<br/>
<br/>
"Holy shit!"<br/>
<br/>
"Exactly." His phone beeps, and he checks the screen. "Right on schedule, too. I love it when a plan comes together." He flicks off the projector. "Come on, spit spot."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
"Tch tch tch." Hal clucks over the figure sprawled on the floor. "Will you look at that."<br/>
<br/>
"Frank!" you cry. "What the--!"<br/>
<br/>
"Must've tried coming in without disabling my burglar alarm."<br/>
<br/>
"What's he doing here? I thought you said--"<br/>
<br/>
"He came when I called. While you and I were in the lab. Texted him and told him to come over, come in without knocking because I didn't want anyone spotting him."<br/>
<br/>
"Why didn't you warn him about the alarm?"<br/>
<br/>
"Because I wanted to knock him out. Come on, use that sigil on him. Set it for--" He checks his phone. "Thirty hours should do it."<br/>
<br/>
Your blood chills. "What are you talking about, Hal?"<br/>
<br/>
"I'm talking about you taking his place, Prescott. With the rowing team. He's already in, you know. Get his <i>imago</i>, clothes, nip back over to their college, get us some memories, maybe some of their <i>imago,</i> spread a little mischief--<br/>
<br/>
"Oh," he adds with a grin. "Then you nip back to the States without him finding out you did your job for Rick."</span></div></div>


path: 11221111111222112211112221212112112121122121211212111212211212211112121222111
author_id: seuzz
title: Hi, Jack!
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>"This is a <i>shit</i> thing we're doing, Hal," you say as you pull on Frank's jeans. They are stiff in the legs and bind tightly just below your belly button. Frank has noticed that the English food has begun to give him a little bit of flab over his otherwise taut abs.<br/>
<br/>
"It's for the cause, brother," Hal says. "Frank would approve."<br/>
<br/>
"I have a better idea of what he'd think," you retort. You slip his jersey over your head. <br/>
<br/>
Hal shrugs. "Wake him up then."<br/>
<br/>
You glower, and drop onto the bed next to the unconscious Frank to pull on socks and sneakers. It's a neat idea Hal's had, which is why you went along with it: Spend the next thirty hours infiltrating this college cult, speeding your colleagues on their way to a higher conspiracy, while still fulfilling the letter of Rick's challenge to you. That should impress him, and maybe he won't ding you too hard for blowing your cover with Hal. "Is he going to be okay? Thirty hours, he's going to be famished when he wakes up."<br/>
<br/>
"He can miss a day or two. Right," he says as you stand. "You're all up to date on what we know. How can I help on the outside?"<br/>
<br/>
"Keep your jackasses out of the way. You're just pissing the guys off."<br/>
<br/>
"That's the idea."<br/>
<br/>
You roll your eyes. "Then I'll head back. Jack was already opening beers, so I might be able to knock him out fast without it looking--"<br/>
<br/>
"Hang on." Hal hops over to a bare pipe running up the wall. He flips open a little hatch in its side and peers in. He twirls a circular handle. "Right, looks like the coast's clear."<br/>
<br/>
"What is that, a fucking periscope?" <br/>
<br/>
"Fucking's got nothing to do with it, but it is a periscope."<br/>
<br/>
You run your fingers through your stiff hair. "In all the years I've known you--" Hal cocks an eyebrow, and glances down at Frank's unconscious form. "I'm off."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
"I'm back," you say as you slam the door behind you. Jack just belches.<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
At six and a half feet, Jack Lewis is one of the smaller members of the rowing team, but he's strong. His ginger-colored hair is trimmed short, and his face is covered with huge, pale freckles. He's sprawled on a ragged couch, one hand around a beer bottle and the other grasping the back of the sofa. He's balanced his laptop on his knees, and is watching a video. His eyes remain locked on the screen as you come around to drop onto the other end of the sofa. "You goin' out?" you ask.<br/>
<br/>
"Nah."<br/>
<br/>
"Anyone coming over?" He shrugs. "How many beers you had?"<br/>
<br/>
He looks over. "Why? Plenty more in there for you." He nods at the dorm fridge. His eyes are drooping a little at the corners, but he doesn't look like he's close to passing out. Just relaxed.<br/>
<br/>
"I'm okay. What're you watching?"<br/>
<br/>
"Ball game."<br/>
<br/>
You look around. It's a nice room, in Bodley's Court in King's College. The walls are of white plaster, the ceiling is high, and there's even a small fireplace. A door leads into the tiny bedroom where Jack sleeps while you--Frank, actually--have taken the sofa. <br/>
<br/>
It's all part of the subterfuge he and Hal had set up. It started with an "impromptu" scrum: Hal and his "lads" confronted some of the rowers, escalating it until shoves were exchanged and blows struck. From a distance, Frank had reached in with his "fist of Malacandra" to break a few bones; once some rowers were on the ground, Hal's pals had scattered. A day later, Frank managed to "bump into" a couple of them in a pub and gotten to talking. He was bumming around Europe on his parents' money, he claimed, and was thinking of settling down in Cambridge for few weeks, as he liked the look and feel of the place. Since half the Cambridge team is from America or Canada, he'd pretended to think they were fellow tourists, then affected surprise and delight to find they were rowers. He was a rower too, he said; and as fellow Yanks they'd taken him to their bosom. Would he like to step in to help the team out, since they'd suffered some temporary casualties? He'd be delighted. Jack had offered to put him up.<br/>
<br/>
"You got any clean clothes?" you ask. "I'm thinking of heading out, looking for some, you know--" You sniff at your shoulder. "And these are--"<br/>
<br/>
"Help yourself," he says, and keeps his eyes locked on the screen.<br/>
<br/>
So you go into the bedroom and pull out a shirt and slacks from his wardrobe. They're a little too big for you--and it's an odd sensation for Frank to slip into too-large clothes--and you also pick up Jack's watch from the bedside stand. At the doorway, you toss your cloak over Lewis. Then you don't even have to tiptoe over as you walk up behind him. It's a little after seven now, so you set the sigil for a seventeen-hour sleep. Noon should be a good wake up time for a guy who's about to drink the rest of the beers in the house. You touch the back of his neck.<br/>
<br/>
He's already so relaxed you have to look around the side of his head to make sure he's out.<br/>
<br/>
You move the laptop to the couch and pry the bottle from his hand, swallowing down the dregs yourself. You drag him into the bedroom and throw him face down on the bed. Back in the living room you open the fridge: Nine bottles; that'll do.<br/>
<br/>
You lug seven of them into the bathroom and pour the contents of all but one down the sink. Four of the empties you put on the floor and couch in the living room; the other two you put on the floor by Jack's bed. <br/>
<br/>
You put your hand to his forehead and close your eyes. In your mind's eye a sigil appears, enclosing Jack Lewis within the form of the Moon. You seal it up and place it in your constellation, next to Nick Martin and Rick Bredon and Angel Armendariz and Lauren Roos and Miko Toyotomi ... Then you draw it on.<br/>
<br/>
The reflection in the wardrobe mirror catches your eye when you look around again. <i>Much better: the clothes are a good fit.</i> Freckles plaster your face, and you smooth down your ginger hair. Your pale blue eyes look flat and tired, but they always look that way. <br/>
<br/>
You chug back half of the seventh beer, then bend over to fit it inside Jack's loosely clenched fingers. He snores lightly.<br/>
<br/>
The last thing you do is strip him of his keys, wallet, cell phone, belt, and shoes. You put the watch back where you'd found it; you now know he only wears it in class, because his professors don't like students looking at cell phones. <br/>
<br/>
You slip on the rest of his wardrobe, then return to the living room and close the bedroom door. But you don't head out. Instead, you take out one of the two remaining beers and plop down where Jack had been sitting--the spot is still warm--and nestle into his groove. Another perfect fit. You open the beer and take a long swallow, then drape your arm where he'd had his. You put the laptop onto your knees, and let your eyes go out of focus as you stare at the screen, occupying the exact same place and pose you'd discovered him in.<br/>
<br/>
But you don't watch the video. You relax and settle back to see what Jack knows about the Ankh of Thoth ...<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
"Yeah!" you call in answer to the knock. The door opens and closes, but you don't look around; she'd called, so you know who it is.<br/>
<br/>
"Is Frank here," Mary Dunsdale asks.<br/>
<br/>
"Bedroom." You belch lightly. "Came back shitfaced, so I gave him the bed." The floorboards creak: footsteps toward the bedroom. "Don't go in there," you say, turning your head. "I checked a little while ago. He's out, but he took all his clothes off first."<br/>
<br/>
She makes a face and comes back over to the sofa, to nestle on the far end. "I gotta talk to someone," she says quietly.<br/>
<br/>
"So you said on the phone. Wanna beer? One more in the fridge." You turn back to the laptop.<br/>
<br/>
"Nnh." Then she reaches over to wrench the laptop away. "Pay attention, asshole."<br/>
<br/>
"Alright, what?"<br/>
<br/>
She's nervous, fidgety. "I had a dream last night."<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah?" She nods tightly, and mutters something. "What?"<br/>
<br/>
"I dreamed I got out of bed and went over to the boat house." She wrings her hands. Now she looks scared. "I danced a bit. You know, like--" She trails off.<br/>
<br/>
You wait for her to resume, then finally fill the silence. "Guilty conscience?"<br/>
<br/>
"Shut up! I danced and then--" She takes a deep breath and looks at her palms. Her voice falls. "And then I had a fucking three-way. A three-way fuck, okay?"<br/>
<br/>
You stare at her. You know exactly what she's trying to say. But-- "You talk to a psych prof about it?"<br/>
<br/>
She turns very red and glares. "It was just like--!" She glances around, as though fearing that invisible things are lurking in the corners, listening. "Like with that girl." Her lips curl into a rictus. "I was there, you know. I heard what you cocksuckers were saying about doing to her."<br/>
<br/>
"And couldn't, because she was supposed to be a virgin. You're not."<br/>
<br/>
For a moment you think she's going to punch you. And then tears come to her eyes: tears of anger and frustration, not sadness. "You know, I thought <i>you'd</i> understand, Lewis--"<br/>
<br/>
"I totally understand, Dunsdale. Guilty conscience, like I said. You got nothing to worry about. We did the ceremony, it's over, and we couldn't even use you anyway."<br/>
<br/>
"You're a fucking asshole! Maybe you were one of them last night. They couldn't use the ankh to fuck the girl, so maybe they're using it to--"<br/>
<br/>
"What do you want me to do about it?"<br/>
<br/>
She looks over at the bedroom door. "Let me stay with you tonight?"</span></div></div>


path: 112211111112221122111122212121121121211221212112121112122112122111121212221112
author_id: seuzz
title: The Girl and the Dream
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>"Don't be stupid, Dunsdale," you say. "You're being hysterical. Dawes and them wouldn't do that to you. All the guys like you, even though you're a cunt."<br/>
<br/>
She turns white and red all over.<br/>
<br/>
"And it'd be stupid. You know what we did. You'd know what was happening, and you'd kick Dawes in the balls afterward."<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, well I know <i>Dawes,</i> too," she hisses. "He didn't let the guys touch the girl, but he'd--"<br/>
<br/>
"He'd get some other wench, not you. Some wench who'd just think it was a weird dream. Someone who wouldn't come bugging me or someone else with--"<br/>
<br/>
"Am I bothering you, Lewis?" she asks with murderous innocence. "I'm sorry, I guess I'll--"<br/>
<br/>
She starts to get up, but you grab her wrist. She struggles, but you pull her back onto the couch. "It was just a fucking dream, Dunsdale. It's your fucking conscience. If you're feeling bad, go tell those lunatics who busted Moore's arm. They're crazy enough to believe anything, even the goddamned truth."<br/>
<br/>
She glares at you hard, and then her eyes water and she looks around the room. Various expressions pass over her face before it hardens. "I don't feel guilty about <i>shit,</i> Lewis," she snarls. "We did it for the team. Fuck her."<br/>
<br/>
"That's the spirit. Fuck her, even if we didn't." That causes a note of fear to flash back in Mary's eyes. "Next time you have a dream, write it down for extra credit in a psych class. I'll walk you back to Wyndham now, if you want."<br/>
<br/>
"No, I don't want--"<br/>
<br/>
But you get up and tug her to her feet too.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Mary fumbles at the keys to her dorm room; you notice that she has kept her face turned from the door across the way--<br/>
<br/>
The door that belonged to a girl murdered by the Cambridge rowing team in an arcane ceremony to boost their chances in the annual race against Oxford.<br/>
<br/>
--and tries getting into her room without you following. But you push in after her. You flick on the switch and look down at her from under heavy eyelids. "You want me to stay with you?"<br/>
<br/>
"What for? You said it was just a dream."<br/>
<br/>
"It was. But you want me to spend the night here anyway?"<br/>
<br/>
"No."<br/>
<br/>
"I want to."<br/>
<br/>
"But I don't--"<br/>
<br/>
You grab her about the waist and the back of the neck and pull her close. She struggles hard, but she's no match for six-and-a-half-feet of strong bones and hard muscles. <br/>
<br/>
<i>Mischief,</i> Hal had suggested. You kick the door shut with your heel. Jack knows nothing about what she's babbling about, but-- <br/>
<br/>
"Are you scared, Dunsdale?" you murmur. "You should be. There's nothin' you can do to stop me or Dawes or the rest of us from doing whatever we want, with anyone, with <i>you,</i> as long as we've got that thing." She freezes in your arms. "There's only one guy that can help you. His name's Hal Swann, that cocksucker who's been hasslin' you every day when you come out of Wyndham. Talk to him. <i>If</i> you can. <i>If</i> you wake up tomorrow morning."<br/>
<br/>
She kicks you hard in the shin, but you've already got your palm to the back of her neck, and the sigil burns in your hand. She goes limp.<br/>
<br/>
She'll be out for twelve hours, and when she wakes, if the girl is smart, she'll run to Hal.<br/>
<br/>
But is she smart? There's only one way to find out.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You tug on the hooded jacket and pull your long, golden hair up in a scrunchie. Your hands peek out of the too-long sleeves as you pick up a mirror to check your newest disguise. Mary Dunsdale's long, healthy face stares back. Her eyes--your eyes--show determination, but also a little fear. You'll be heading into the belly of the beast.<br/>
<br/>
And it's probably just the tip of the tentacle, as Hal has said.<br/>
<br/>
Mary's dream washes over you again, and you grit your teeth:<br/>
<br/>
<i>It is a world of inky blacks and snowy whites, with no shades between. You flit down the hallway and onto a lawn and through the gates and along the street. The voice of your beloved calls, and you must go. Ahead is the boathouse; the door opens and a golden light pours out.<br/>
<br/>
Two figures are within. They glow, but one glows brighter than the other. He speaks, and his words form brilliant, vivid figures in the air. Surely this is an angel.<br/>
<br/>
He commands you to dance. You do. The angel murmurs with pleasure. He commands you to remove your clothes. You do. He draws you into an embrace. Your body tenses with an ecstatic anticipation.<br/>
<br/>
He commands you to drink of his essence. It is like honey and diamonds in your mouth. As you swallow his radiance, a golden shaft enters you from behind, and a molten pleasure fills you. You caress one burning angelic form, and then the other, and then both. Jeweled limbs enter you, and throb, and withdraw. It would seem never to end. But it does. The angels dim a little, and one orders you to return to your rooms. You flit back the way you came, a butterfly born on breezes of ecstasy.</i><br/>
<br/>
"Fuckers," you snarl, and drop the mirror with a hard clatter onto the desk. You jam your feet into Mary's tennis shoes and leave, locking the door behind you. Maybe she can get out if summoned again, and maybe she can't. But you'll try to put a stop to it before that test comes.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
"Dawes!" you holler, and pound on his door with the flat of your hand. "Dawes, you cocksucker! Open this door, you shit! I know you're in! I'll kick this fucking door down if you--"<br/>
<br/>
The door opens. Graham Lundesky blinks down at you. "Dunsdale," he grunts.<br/>
<br/>
You shove him, but he's seven feet tall, and only takes half a step back as you push past. "Where the fuck's Dawes?"<br/>
<br/>
He's at his desk, and slouches back to smile bemusedly at you. "I'm not hiding."<br/>
<br/>
"You'll wish you had! Get out!" you yell at Lundesky.<br/>
<br/>
Neither of the two rowers move, until Dawes rubs his nose and shrugs. Lundesky steps out and closes the door behind him.<br/>
<br/>
"Where's that fucking ankh?" you yell at Dawes.<br/>
<br/>
"Keep your voice down. It's safe."<br/>
<br/>
"I'll pitch my voice however I goddamn please, Dawes. I know what you're doing with it!"<br/>
<br/>
"Of course. You were there."<br/>
<br/>
"I'm talking about last night!"<br/>
<br/>
Puzzlement shows in his eyes. "What happened last night?"<br/>
<br/>
"If you've got the ankh, you know exactly what happened last night!"<br/>
<br/>
His expression doesn't change. Either he's a very subtle actor, or-- "I've got the ankh, Dunsdale, but I don't know--"<br/>
<br/>
You stalk up and jab a finger in his face. "You tell me what you did, and why you did it. You <i>don't</i> want me touching you!"<br/>
<br/>
His grin turns lazy. "Actually, I think I'd like that a lot."<br/>
<br/>
So you oblige, touching the side of his nose. His eyes turn glassy, and he falls out of the chair. You crouch by him and put your hand to his forehead, but you only go looking for memories.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
 "Oh, you moron," you mutter over Dawes, and chew at a fingernail. "What have you gotten yourself into? What have you gotten all your <i>friends</i> into?"<br/>
<br/>
It's a weird kind of double vision you're suffering. Mary's own terror--for you're still inside her mind even as you examine Dawes'--and your own memories of what it was like to play around with a dangerous occult object without knowing until too late what it was capable of doing to the unwary.<br/>
<br/>
Because Mary was wrong: Dawes did <i>not</i> use the Ankh of Thoth on her; and because it has been in his rooms ever since the ceremony he and his teammates used it to "bless" their boat, it can't be anyone else who used it on her. But that doesn't mean she had "only" a dream.<br/>
<br/>
Because Dawes himself had suffered a similar dream only a few nights ago. He'd woken, first with a very pleasant erection, and then with a soul-choking terror that sent him scrambling for the ankh in its box under the loose floorboard under his bed. He'd finally laid it aside as an anxiety dream, and not told anyone. But you can see his dream and Mary's dream and lay them side by side. Their points of contact are not exact, but the details and mood and impressions are too close to be coincidental. For though Dawes and Dunsdale and the other seven members of the rowing team had watched the girl dance herself to death in the boathouse, none of them could possibly know what it was like to be the puppet dancing on the end of its string.<br/>
<br/>
And still you chew your fingernail as you go over to the door to lock it. You don't want Lundesky barging back in before you decide what to do. You go into the bedroom and scrabble about under Dawes' bed until you find that loose floorboard and pull out the box. You use one of his discarded socks to take out the ankh.<br/>
<br/>
It's small and greenish and notched. It looks very old. And because you've seen what it can do, you also think it looks very evil.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Fuck.</i> You turn the ankh over and over in your hands. This is way beyond you. You'd have to bring up Frank's <i>imago</i> to see if it's beyond him, but it probably doesn't matter. You've got in your hands, and you should get it to Hal.<br/>
<br/>
But there is still the possibility of infiltrating the group higher still. Hal was right about Dawes being the top man of the local group. No one is pulling his strings, not directly. But he didn't find the Ankh of Thoth on his own. He was nudged toward it, by Professor Jameson Hyde-White.<br/>
<br/>
That's the Fane Professor of Biomedical Engineering.</span></div></div>


path: 1122111111122211221111222121211211212112212121121211121221121221111212122211122
author_id: seuzz
title: From the Top of the Pyramid ...
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>You've only got twenty-four hours to get back to Heathrow and catch the plane back to LA, and you've already done more in 90 minutes than Hal and Frank could have done in nine days. You've recovered the ankh for them, given them a definite lead to pursue, and maybe scared one of the rowers into running to them. That's enough.<br/>
<br/>
But you've time to chase the lead a little higher.<br/>
<br/>
Still, you should get the ankh back to Hal. <i>Two birds with one stone,</i> you think, for the next obvious disguise is also the one guy who can smuggle it out at zero risk of being stopped. <br/>
<br/>
You crouch next to Dawes and again put your palm to his forehead. You close your eyes. His face--hard but masterful--appears before you, and you press it into a new sigil and close it up. You smile a little to yourself as you contemplate your rapidly expanding constellation. Mary Dunsdale is small and tight and athletic, with strong and shapely boobs and buttocks, and her pert mouth and widely spaced eyes look good beneath her flowing blonde hair. Phil Dawes isn't the handsomest man you've ever seen, but he's six-feet-ten of pure muscle, and Mary herself knows how good he is in bed. Besides Frank's <i>imago,</i> you'll be able to show Rick some "bedroom faces," as a dividend. And without having to fuck your way into them.<br/>
<br/>
With your eyes still closed you tear off Mary's clothes and throw them at the door. Then you pull Dawes' <i>imago</i> over yourself. It's like a skin that slides beneath yours.<br/>
<br/>
The floor sways a little when you open your eyes; since your head is suddenly ten inches farther from it. You grab up Dawes' phone, and flick your finger over the screen until you find Lundesky's number. "She gone?" he asks as soon as he picks up.<br/>
<br/>
"Go crash with Keys. I don't wanna see you before tomorrow."<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, c'mon! At least let me sleep out in the--"<br/>
<br/>
"If she and me are gonna do this right, we're gonna do it all over, all night. You saw how wound up she was. Just find someplace else," you snap when he sighs.<br/>
<br/>
You scatter Mary's clothes all over the already messy living room, and hang her bra off the light fixture. If Lundesky does come back, and you want to give him every incentive to leave again.<br/>
<br/>
You drag Dawes by the ankles into the bedroom, pushing aside clothes that have scattered from the overturned hamper. You throw some of them out into the living room to further reinforce the impression that a sex typhoon has swept through. You don't disrobe him--no need of that--but you do snatch off the shell necklace from his neck and put it on. He looks naked without it, and was frantic with anger for a few days at the start of term when it briefly disappeared under his rooms' mess. You pull on some dirty clothes, not caring if they are his or Lundesky's, since they don't care much themselves. You pull on his heaviest coat--though it's not that cold outside--and jam the box with the ankh into an inner breast pocket. You leave his cell phone, though.<br/>
<br/>
"Where you off to?" Adam "Ding" Bell calls from the end of the hall as you lock the door.<br/>
<br/>
"Food run, gotta fuel up," you shout back, then hunch your shoulders and stride off the other way. "Piss off!" you call over your shoulder as he calls to you again.<br/>
<br/>
It's about half a mile between Dawes's rooms and Hal's basement flat, and you trudge quickly along with your head down. You'd jog, but you don't want to call attention to yourself. Almost as soon as you were out the door you were seized by the feeling that you were being followed, and your eyes dart about. It's not as bad as the sensation you had while wearing Rick's face, but it's similar; you've a sense that things are hovering nearby.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Just fucking nerves,</i> you try to reassure yourself.<br/>
<br/>
It's still relatively early--though the winter sun set hours ago--and there are still crowds out. You dodge them when you can, and brush through them when you can't. You get some hard looks, but no one is going to stop a giant. The worst moments come when figures dart out from side streets directly into your path. Then it's you who jump to the side, heart beating.<br/>
<br/>
You're just passing Wyndham again--<i>not far now!</i>--when you spring back onto the sidewalk at the sound of a racing motor. A sleek luxury sedan screeches up in front of you. It's dark and the windows are tinted. There's a Cthulhian air to the way streaks of light slide liquidly over its polished surfaces.<br/>
<br/>
The window goes down, and the driver smiles out at you. His face is lean and unlined, but his hair is silver. Like the car, he seems to gleam.<br/>
<br/>
"Mr. Dawes," purrs Professor Jameson Hyde-White. "How are you, dear boy? I was just thinking about you. May I give you a lift?"<br/>
<br/>
This is exactly what you wanted, and sooner than you expected. But you're suddenly wary; it's <i>too</i> perfect. You jerk your chin. "I was just going along to see--"<br/>
<br/>
"I'm going that way myself. Do get in. There are certain things I'd like to talk to you about."<br/>
<br/>
You hesitate. But why not? You only have to get in, reach over to touch him to knock him out, get his memories out for Hal ...<br/>
<br/>
"Sure, thanks," you say, and go around to the passenger-side door. The rich leather seat squeals under your ass as you sit down. The door slams with the softest "thud" you've ever heard. You look over at the professor. He smiles.<br/>
<br/>
The world fades, and you know no more.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You wake to whiteness. The world is entirely blank, a snowy void stretching to infinity--<br/>
<br/>
You blink and focus. No, it's just a very white ceiling, without mark  or blemish, which makes it hard to concentrate on. You try to move, but find yourself bound tightly all over, so that you can't shift so much as a finger. You can lift your head though. You look around. The walls are as white as the ceiling.<br/>
<br/>
You are naked and lying on some kind of gurney, and a sheet like cellophane is wrapped all about your body. You feel at your <i>imago:</i> Good. You're still in Phil Dawes' form. You drop your head back.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Dammit, you shouldn't have gotten greedy.</i> Professor Hyde-White is bad news, and you should have remembered from your time with Aubrey Blackwell that there are ways of knocking people out. <br/>
<br/>
But why would Hyde-White want to kidnap and imprison Phil Dawes?<br/>
<br/>
Then another, far worse, thought forms: Maybe he wanted to kidnap and imprison <i>you.</i><br/>
<br/>
But how would he know about you?<br/>
<br/>
You close your eyes, blinking beneath your lids. What does Phil know about Hyde-White? Not much. He got a call from the distinguished professor about two months ago, an invitation to tea. It had been a polite, even charming affair in the clubby little room, as the professor had talked in crisp tones about Dawes' family. He said he had gone to school with Phil's late uncle, and claimed to see the resemblance. "A great rower," he'd said, and asked keenly about the Cambridge clubs and their chances against Oxford. Phil had politely expressed his confidence. <i>Ah, but Oxford has been so dominant recently,</i> the professor had sighed. <i>It was such a vexation.</i> How pleased he would be if Dawes and his teammates were the ones to shatter the recent losing streak. How it would have pleased his old friend.<br/>
<br/>
That had been the first meeting. There had been others. They had met for dinner a few times, at the school and even at the professor's well-appointed cottage. They had talked of many things. The professor's specialty, of course, was medicine, but he had an amateur's fascination with ancient Egypt. <i>Did Phil know that the Fane Foundation had recently bestowed some marvelous antiquities upon the museum? He didn't? Here was a pamphlet on them. Oh, and a book that described some of them in more depth.</i><br/>
<br/>
And that was all, except for one lunch, a little later, when the professor had obliquely linked the topic of rowing and the topic of Egyptology by waxing over the marvelous designs the Egyptians had for their boats, giving them an almost supernatural ability to skim over the Nile. It was only one of many asides he had made, but it had caught Phil's ear, for it echoed what he had already learned from the material the professor had given him: that one of the Fane-donated items was the Ankh of Thoth.<br/>
<br/>
Dawes ran the ceremony. Is that why Hyde-White is interested in him? Whatever Dawes thought, <i>you</i> don't think the professor is innocent.<br/>
<br/>
You open your eyes at the sound of a soft click, and look around wildly. A figure in blue approaches, and resolves into a man. He's swaddled in a puffy blue gown, with a clear plastic helmet over his head. <i>Ah. A "bunny suit"</i>, you think you've heard them called. Even sealed off in this way, he has a mask over his mouth. He seizes a lock of your hair, and you hear a "snip."<br/>
<br/>
Another figure appears over his shoulder: Professor Hyde-White. He's not in any kind of lab gear, though; his dark suit--are there purple threads running through it?--is rich, his collar white, his tie silky. He looks down at you with a bemused smile, and his wide nostrils flare. "How are you feeling, dear boy?"<br/>
<br/>
"I don't think Uncle Bob would like this."<br/>
<br/>
"Never met your Uncle Bob," the professor replies. "And I rather doubt you had an 'Uncle Bob' I could have met."</span></div></div>


path: 11221111111222112211112221212112112121122121211212111212211212211112121222111221
author_id: seuzz
title: ... to the Belly of the Beast
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>"Are you high?" you gasp, trying to channel Phil Dawes as convincingly as you can. "The fuck are you--? Is this some kind of goofy medical experiment?"<br/>
<br/>
"An experiment of some kind," says the professor. His dark eyes gleam with amusement. "Would you like to cooperate? Advance the cause of science?"<br/>
<br/>
Your mouth goes dry. "I'm not interested in being your fucking guinea pig."<br/>
<br/>
"You may not be interested in science," the professor retorts. "But I assure you that science is quite interested in you."<br/>
<br/>
He keeps his eyes locked on yours as he holds out his hand, and the technician slaps something into it. The professor holds it up: the ankh. You feel your eyes go wide.<br/>
<br/>
He shifts it into his other hand, and, still with an unblinking gaze upon you holds his palm out. Again, the technician drops something into it. The professor pinches it between his fingertips and shows you: dark hair, like Phil's.<br/>
<br/>
Your eye twitches. <i>That's your hair. But it's not the same kind of stuff as Phil's, because your body only imitates his. If the professor uses it with the ankh, should you pretend and play along?</i><br/>
<br/>
He pinches the hair between his fingertips and the ankh, holding it there. From his pocket he takes a little red book: <i>The Song of the Nile,</i> the other half of the spell mechanism. He flips it open. And yet he still keeps his eyes locked on you.<br/>
<br/>
In this attitude, with book and ankh balanced over your face, he begins to sing. At once you lose consciousness.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
The angel stands over you, blinding you with his brilliance. You gaze up at him with adoration. Sweet words slide from his mouth and glitter in the air like strings of bright jewels. He commands you to show him your palm. 'Tis bliss to comply. He commands you to show him what is in it. Joy erupts within your soul as you bring up the sigil that copies <i>imago.</i><br/>
<br/>
You ache as the angel falls silent. But it is enough to stare into his face ...<br/>
<br/>
Time passes, though you are simultaneously aware of its passage, and unmindful of it. Each moment is a moment of eternal delight, and you can tell each moment from the next only as the angel speaks, or as you change your sigils at his command. He bids you show him other faces, and you suppose you do, though you are hardly conscious of yourself, let alone the names and minds that slip past. <br/>
<br/>
But then comes discord. He bids you show him your "true face"; smiling at the prospect of this joyous intimacy, you open your hand. Behind him, the eye of Sulva appears. A silvery shriek erupts from the angel's mouth; his light shimmers and abruptly winks out. You cry with despair--<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You scream with anger and horror, and thrash your head back and forth. Foam froths over your lips and gums. "The curses of the stars upon you, foulness!" a voice booms in the emptiness, for you are again alone in the white void. "The frost of Sulva blight you, the light of his countenance shiver you! May he swallow you and never may the light of the sun be upon your face again!"<br/>
<br/>
You slam your head back upon the gurney and pant. <i>Was that your voice?</i> It seemed to come out of you, but you've no sense of having said it.<br/>
<br/>
But it certainly expresses your feelings. Loathing and horror crawl over your skin. You feel as though garbage has been dragged through your soul.<br/>
<br/>
You pant until you recover yourself. And as you master yourself you hear a noise. It's a low gurgling and bubbling, as of thick, soapy water in bad drains, punctuated by heaving sighs.<br/>
<br/>
Then comes a slurping and slithering noise, and the professor suddenly looms back into view. His face is now puffy, chalky, as though covered in dust, and fine lines and wrinkles disfigure his brow and cheeks. His hair is wildly disordered and his eye stabs you. He looks to have aged twenty years.<br/>
<br/>
His lips peel back, and his teeth are yellow. He leans over and hisses in your ear. "I will snip you into tiny pieces, <i>Stellae,</i>" he says. "I will strip your skin away thread by thread. I will blot your blood with sandpaper. I will twist your flesh off with pliers and leave you cold and naked and shivering under your <i>ousiarch's</i> necrotic twin." He lifts claw-like hands, and for a moment you think he will tear your face off with his nails. But with a shudder he masters himself, and clears his throat, and straightens his jacket and tie. He brushes back his hair. His lips twist. "<i>Do</i> enjoy your stay with us. My <i>dear. Boy.</i>"<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
<i>What Fane wouldn't give to have you on one of their slabs.</i> Hal's words reverberate in your head. That's exactly where you are.<br/>
<br/>
And what have they gotten out of you? Some of your hair, at least. Any more? When you were a golem Blackwell got some <i>essentia</i> out of you, but it didn't last very long. Kali says you're still a kind of golem; maybe the stuff they got off of you will evaporate?<br/>
<br/>
But you also showed them your sigils. You clench your eyes at the memory. You were entirely their puppet, and did it easily, willingly, joyously. The <i>impression</i> of being under their control is fresh and vivid; the actual doings are vaguer. You close your eyes and fall into that silent place where you keep them. You sense that you are back in Phil Dawes's form as <i>imago</i> and sigils wheel before you. They are unaltered, so you will have only shown them--<br/>
<br/>
<i>Shit.</i> There's a new one. You shudder as you recognize it. The one that turns people into golems. You dive at the one before, that makes golems. It is no longer fuzzy. <br/>
<br/>
They made you unlock it. They made you use it.<br/>
<br/>
You open your eyes and feel around. Your right hand is free, and you can move it around. They must have cut the restraining plastic away there when they began to examine you. It does you no good, though, for there is nothing within reach to grip, and the sheet is still all about you.<br/>
<br/>
You wonder how much time has passed. Is the flight that was supposed to take you back to the States now winging its way over the Atlantic?<br/>
<br/>
That's the least of your worries now.<br/>
<br/>
You stare up at the blank ceiling. Time passes, and seconds, minutes ... hours? ... silt up about you.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You raise your head again at a sound, and strain your ears. What is it?<br/>
<br/>
It's an absence. The "white noise" from distant motors has cut off. Your heart thumps more clearly in your ears.<br/>
<br/>
The lights dim, and blink off, then come back on. What are they doing now?<br/>
<br/>
You strain within your prison. It does not good.<br/>
<br/>
Again the lights dim and flicker. A buzz, like a metallic wasp beating itself against glass, fills the air. Again, the lights blink out, leaving you in darkness.<br/>
<br/>
Now there are footsteps, light and stealthy. Something soft brushes at your ear. "That you, Prescott?" a voice whispers.<br/>
<br/>
"Hal?" you gasp.<br/>
<br/>
"Aces. Have you out in a jiff." There's a ripping sound, and the plastic wrap parts. "Spit spot, Will."<br/>
<br/>
You swing up stiffly to the floor. Your joints ache, but they loosen and warm as a hand takes and tugs you along. The dim figure stops you with a hand to the chest after a dozen steps, and a dim rectangle--the pad of a phone--shines. "Can you spread that cape of yours out? Took me an hour to get to you. Like to get out in under five if we can manage."<br/>
<br/>
"I have to see 'em to use it on 'em, Hal."<br/>
<br/>
"Just have it at the ready then. Okay, on three. One ... oh, dammit, <i>three.</i>"<br/>
<br/>
Off to your right a light shows, and you dash toward it in his wake. A moment later you're leaning against the gleaming walls of a lift as the doors close. Hal gives you an encouraging clap to the shoulder. "Down two, then along a catwalk and out a window."<br/>
<br/>
"How'd you--?"<br/>
<br/>
"Time for tales later. First thing--"<br/>
<br/>
You slap your hand to his face; he staggers back and slumps. Gritting your teeth with fear, you feel for his <i>imago.</i><br/>
<br/>
It's there, and there's nothing beneath. You let out a sigh of relief. He's the real deal.<br/>
<br/>
But unconscious. You hoist him over your shoulder. As the doors open, you grope a hand under his shirt and rest it on bare skin. You trot along, puffing and soaking up his memories, for you'll need them to get out. Hal himself will be unconscious for--<br/>
<br/>
<i>Good. Only ten minutes.</i><br/>
<br/>
You grapple for his plan to extract you from the biomedical building. You're in B5, the corridor leading to-- There's the signal he'd set: the fluorescent lights all wink out. You jog along until you get to the junction to the next corridor, where you pause until the ones running down the corridor to the left wink out. That means the security cameras are disabled.<br/>
<br/>
Hal is good.<br/>
<br/>
You quickly reach the doors to the loading bay at the end, but you wait until the lights come back on before opening them. There's a cat walk, twenty feet above the concrete floor below, running off to the left. You hurry along it, toward a string of Christmas lights, one end tied to a rail and the other thrown out a huge window. It's still dark outside.<br/>
<br/>
You can't get Hal down the escape cord, not till he revives. Which is going to be problem, because--<br/>
<br/>
You glance into the bay, and freeze.<br/>
<br/>
There's a large sigil painted on the floor, and you can take it in at a glance: It's the sigil that makes golems.<br/>
<br/>
And in its center is a tangle of tubes and wires and limbs. As you watch, it shifts, and you have the distinct impression it is looking back at you.</span></div></div>


path: 112211111112221122111122212121121121211221212112121112122112122111121212221112211
author_id: seuzz
title: The Child
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>It's an assembly robot, of some kind. From out of a cylindrical base sprout three arms, each ending in a three-fingered, articulated claw. It is one of these that seems to be gazing at you. Beside it, attached vertically to a metal stand, is a tube, topped by a hopper, and at the bottom of which is a large plastic bowl holding a pink ball. You stare at this odd tableaux.<br/>
<br/>
Until you hear voices. From directly beneath, onto the floor, charge two figures. One, by his hair, you recognize as the professor. The other is someone--maybe the same man--in a blue "bunny suit."<br/>
<br/>
You drop your cloak over them, like a net.<br/>
<br/>
The professor stalks into the middle of the bay and looks down at the sigil. He looks around, and looks up, his sharp gaze traveling the catwalk. Even at a distance of twenty yards, he looks ill. Deep lines are etched under his eyes, and his cheeks are sunken. His eyes show red rims. "Well it's not coming from here," he snaps in a hard voice. "Must be those fools outside. It was too much to hope the one in the exam room was the only--<br/>
<br/>
"Oy!" he shouts, and swings around to glower at the robot. "An' 'oo toldja you cud <i>stop?</i>" You gape at the change in his voice. Gone are the silvery accents, replaced by a guttural Cockney. He kicks the robot savagely. "Back a' wuk!"<br/>
<br/>
The robot comes to life. Two of its arms fold down. With a mechanical whine, the third picks up the pink ball, raises it to the hopper and releases it. The ball falls back into the bowl. Again, it picks up the ball and drops it in the hopper. Patiently, rotely, it continues this pointless, Sisyphean labor. The professor glares at it, then stalks out, trailing his assistant.<br/>
<br/>
When the door below clicks shut, you swing over the catwalk, dangle from its lip, and drop hard onto the floor below. Your ankles ache as you hobble over to the robot. It stops as you draw near, and again seems to turn to you. You stop as well.<br/>
<br/>
You look it over. There's nothing obviously odd about it, though you've no real experience with things like it. Its base is yellow, with the black letters FANE stenciled on its side. <br/>
<br/>
You look down at the sigil. It's a larger version of the one you carry within you, the one that makes golems, but you sense it's not identical to yours. Your eye travels carefully over it, searching for the discrepancies. Minutes pass ...<br/>
<br/>
You suck in a breath. There's a hole in it. In your mind's eye you see what should go there: <i>essentia.</i> They've left it out? You peer more closely, and then all the small hairs on your body rise.<br/>
<br/>
It's not a hole, it's a residue left by an evaporation. And you can spell out the item that evaporated. In the language of the sigils, it would say "WILLIAM MARTIN PRESCOTT."<br/>
<br/>
You raise your eyes slowly to look at the robot. It looks back at you.<br/>
<br/>
You hold out your hand, palm forward, fingers extended. The robot mimics your movement.<br/>
<br/>
You push your hand forward. It extends its claw. You touch. <br/>
<br/>
You twine your fingers around its. And you sense--you <i>know</i>--it is twining invisible fingers about yours.<br/>
<br/>
It's <i>you.</i> Part of you. A shadow or reflection, distorted, trapped, twisted, tortured. But a little piece of you is inside it. They imbued it with animation by using your <i>essentia.</i> And it is still <i>you,</i> even after the <i>essentia</i> evaporated.<br/>
<br/>
"Prescott! Will!" a voice hisses from high. "Up here! We're on a schedule!"<br/>
<br/>
You ignore Hal, and put your other hand over the claw. You caress it.<br/>
<br/>
"Will! Oh, fucking <i>hell!</i>" There's a thud, and you look back to see Hal hobbling crookedly toward you. "Shit!" he gasps, and stares at the sigil. "Lights were off or I'da seen this!"<br/>
<br/>
"They copied my sigils, Hal," you say in a dull voice. "They used me to make a golem."<br/>
<br/>
"So I see. I'll fetch a crowbar, we'll bust it down to scrap metal."<br/>
<br/>
You swing a fist at him. Fortunately, you're so angry you miss completely. Phil Dawes' fist, at the end of Phil Dawes' arm and thrown with Will Prescott's fury, would probably have knocked him cold for an hour. "Watch it!" he cries.<br/>
<br/>
"It's <i>me</i> in there," you shout at him, and don't mind the echoes that boom in the cavernous space. "They used <i>me</i> to animate it!"<br/>
<br/>
"So I see," he says again, and taps at the residue with his toe. "But it can't be helped, Will. Can't leave Fane with a thing like this. Gotta wipe the sigil." He glances at the ceiling, and mutters something in Russian. "Recover the copies they made, too."<br/>
<br/>
"So wipe out the sigil, but leave the thing," you say. <i>Can it hear you? Does it understand?</i> It seemed to sag at Hal's words.<br/>
<br/>
"Much as I'd like to oblige without starting a bloody row, I can't. They made their own modification to the sigil. Note it's not plugged in? Sigil's powering it. We destroy the sigil, it dies anyway."<br/>
<br/>
Your heart sinks to your toes, and quivers there when you feel the thing's claws squeeze your own gently. You can't kill it. You can't take it with you. But you can't leave it here. Even if you could destroy the sigil without destroying it, you couldn't leave it with Fane, as a slave ...<br/>
<br/>
"Time's a'wasting, Will. I don't think you know the kind of schedule we're on."<br/>
<br/>
Your eye goes to the base of the robot, to a little strip of loose metal. You swallow, for you see a way out.<br/>
<br/>
It's still an <i>awful</i> way out.<br/>
<br/>
It's instinct, not Rick's training or Kali's education, that guides you. You tear the strip away and squeeze it in your hand while bringing up the sigil that makes mind-bands. When you open your hand again, the band has your name on it, imprinted in runic letters. Gently you lay it on the robot's arm. It shouldn't work, but it does: the band vanishes into it.<br/>
<br/>
The robot shudders, and is still. And then with a whir it jerks to life again. It seems to stare at you.<br/>
<br/>
The claw you hold squeezes your hand. A second claw goes up, tentatively--<br/>
<br/>
Then extends, to gently stroke the side of your head. <br/>
<br/>
The third points to the side.<br/>
<br/>
There's a bench under the catwalk. Tools are spread on it. One is a power drill.<br/>
<br/>
You point it out to Hal. "Bring that thing over," you tell him quietly.<br/>
<br/>
He looks at you with a puzzled expression, but complies. You hand it to the robot.<br/>
<br/>
Again it strokes the side of your head. You step back, not wanting to let go of it. Your heart cracks as you release it.<br/>
<br/>
The drill whirs, and the robot plunges it into the concrete. The drill bit shrieks as the robot grinds away at the sigil, turning in a slow circle. Dust rises in clouds. The robot's movements are sure, until it is halfway completed. Then it begins to slow noticeably. Its movements become jerky. Only inches of the sigil remain, and it stops.<br/>
<br/>
You hold your breath. You don't want to finish the job yourself.<br/>
<br/>
With a spasm, the robot comes to life, and with a kind of grim determination drills away the last of the infernal Fane mockery. The drill dies with a dull whine.<br/>
<br/>
Like the petals of an exotic flower, the robot's arms droop to the floor, and are still.<br/>
<br/>
Hal puts his arm around your naked torso, since it's too hard to reach Phil Dawes' shoulder. "Come on, Will. No time for a proper burial. Best thing we can do is kick the Fane bastards where it hurts. Right in the family jewels."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You run along the corridor, Hal close at your side, grimly throwing the coils of your cloak over, and then withdrawing it from, the few people that you pass. You hardly pay attention to what you're doing; it's not easy, or automatic, but you feel no strain, no panic as you expertly whip along the top floor of the Biomedical Engineering building toward Professor Hyde-White's office. In the back of your mind you know why the feeling is familiar: You've had it when "in the zone" on a videogame. You don't let it distract you though, and studiously ignore your own quickness and skill with the lariat. <br/>
<br/>
The professor's office is inside an open suite at the corner. The lights are on, but the outer office is empty, and you don't knock before busting open the door behind his nameplate. <br/>
<br/>
The office is dark, except for a desk lamp. His tall leather chair is turned away from the desk, toward the immense bay window overlooking the campus. Lights twinkle outside.<br/>
<br/>
No need for invisibility now. You grasp the top of the chair and wheel it around.<br/>
<br/>
The professor gapes back at you. <br/>
<br/>
Or, rather, his remains do. Like the Egyptian mummies he'd affected an enthusiasm for, he is dry, wrinkled and shrunken. His eye sockets are empty, and his tongue gone from his mouth.<br/>
<br/>
The computer on his desk chirps like a cricket. "Wiping out the whole system," Hal says, indicating the thumb drive he's stuck into it. "Not subtle, but thorough." He picks up an oversize envelope and peeks into it. "Looks like the professor died just in time, too. Didn't get your things mailed off."<br/>
<br/>
"What caused him to--"<br/>
<br/>
"No time for that."<br/>
<br/>
"But--"<br/>
<br/>
"No time for that either. You gotta plane to catch and five hours to catch it in."<br/>
<br/>
"What?"<br/>
<br/>
"You were in here for nearly twenty-four hours, Will. Me and the lads worked as quick as we could once we knew you were in trouble. Your car's out front, Rick's clothes in the boot. Here's the keys."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You race hard, for your delay in the bay has deranged the careful itinerary Hal planned and cost you nearly an hour. Only by gunning the car do get close to back on track.<br/>
<br/>
And then you see the turn off to Oxford. Instead of completing your mission, maybe you should see Margaret.</span></div></div>


path: 1122111111122211221111222121211211212112212121121211121221121221111212122211122111
author_id: seuzz
title: What Is Owed
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>Screw the job for Rick. You've muffed it three times at least already. You need to talk to someone, and Margaret is the one that all the <i>Stellae</i> turn to.<br/>
<br/>
So you slow up and take things easy, and twenty minutes later pull into her driveway. You've no idea if she'll be awake. You know Fyodor won't be here. You drew up Hal's memories on the drive, to see exactly what's been going on over the past twenty-four hours, and you know that Fyodor is back with his protege in Cambridge, cleaning things up.<br/>
<br/>
The lights are all out, but the door is unlocked. That doesn't mean anything, of course. Your own earlier experience showed that Margaret has nothing to fear from burglars.<br/>
<br/>
So if you're quiet, it's because you don't want to wake her. You close the front door softly.<br/>
<br/>
You're about to call her name when you feel a vacuum open up in front of you; your feet almost go out from under you as you stumble forward. Her parlor door opens of its own accord, and you are over the threshold before you know it. It closes behind you with a click.<br/>
<br/>
Margaret Dillon is still sitting in her chair, feet dangling--hanging like the limp limbs of a doll--before the fire. It is the only light in the room. But though the flames are amber, their reflection on her glasses is white. You are in Nick Martin's form, but you feel no compulsion to drop his face, as you did when you were wearing Rick's. Nevertheless, you reach into yourself and bring your own original (though reversed) <i>imago</i> to the surface.<br/>
<br/>
She says nothing, but waits patiently. It seems you are to speak first. But where to start? With the fact that you've made a mess of a simple training exercise, blowing your own cover, accidentally and then deliberately; that you assaulted one of your own <i>Stellae</i> colleagues and stole his identity so that you could do his job for him? That you threatened and abused three different students at Cambridge? That you nearly let yourself, and all your secrets, fall into the hands of a sinister organization?<br/>
<br/>
That you gave an industrial robot the ability to commit suicide?<br/>
<br/>
And at the latter thought you feel a soft touch at your shoulder, no heavier than the weight of a frail and aged hand.<br/>
<br/>
Your chest heaves and great streams of tears explode from your eyes. "Oh, God!" you cry. "Oh God!"<br/>
<br/>
You stumble forward and drop to your knees to bury your face in the hem of Margaret's skirt. She doesn't touch you, but you feel the pressures building on your shoulders. Immense pressures, like stones and mountains and finally moons press down on you. You gasp and bawl and heave, and still they press, until all the tears have been squeezed out of you.<br/>
<br/>
And then you sleep and know no more.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Your eyes open to whiteness, and for a terrifying moment you think you are back in the Biomedical building, and that your escape was only a dream. But the smell of crisp linen dispels that little nightmare in an instant. You turn over and look around.<br/>
<br/>
You are in a small bedroom, hardly bigger than the walk-in closets back in your house in Saratoga Falls, tucked into a small but immensely comfortable bed. The sheets are fresh and white, and downy comforters are piled high on you. The headboard is roughly hewn, but solid. There is a small dresser next to the door, and a chair by the bed, and that is the only furniture that can be squeezed in. A window with lacy curtains is over your head, and bright, cheerful light filters through.<br/>
<br/>
You sit up with a refreshing yawn, and find you're dressed in striped pajamas. You blink and stretch, though you feel almost entirely awake. There are some bedroom slippers on the floor, and you tuck your feet into them as you get up. A thick, soft robe hangs from a hook on the back of the door, and you put it on and pad out.<br/>
<br/>
The bedroom leads into a small dining nook and then into the kitchen. Through the other door you see the living room, but it is empty. Another door leads outside, and through the small window cut in it you see a head bobbing up and down. You open the door and step out into a garden. But it's mid-December, and there is no life here. <br/>
<br/>
Except for Fyodor, who would be life enough for The Hundred Acre Wood.<br/>
<br/>
His back is to you, and you're glad, for he is entirely naked and doing squats. "Ah!" he exclaims each time his ass hits his heels.<br/>
<br/>
You must have made a noise, for he turns; you also turn, trying not to look at him. But he calls your name with a wide smile, and grabs you in an embrace. "You slept. How do you feel?"<br/>
<br/>
"I'm fine, sir. Thank you. Should I go get some vodka and keep marching?"<br/>
<br/>
His laughter booms. "It's all gone. And you've reached your objective. I'll fix you breakfast." He snatches up some shorts from the ground and snaps them on. "A good Russian breakfast!"<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Inside he puts on a robe too and bustles about the kitchen, making lots of racket. Either a "good Russian breakfast" is a lot like a "good English breakfast," or there just weren't the makings for it, because you wind up with eggs and bacon and ham and sausage and toast and marmalade and coffee. Maybe it's the portions that make it "Russian," because he hands you a small mountain of protein, fat and cholesterol. <br/>
<br/>
You don't talk much while eating, and Fyodor fills the spaces with jokes and asides and little stories. Not until you're finished do you broach the topics on your mind. "So, I missed my flight back to America."<br/>
<br/>
"I told Rick," Fyodor. "We'll arrange another flight."<br/>
<br/>
"It means I flunked my assignment. I was supposed to be on the flight whether I got Frank's <i>imago</i> or not."<br/>
<br/>
"Yes. Rick will have much to say to you."<br/>
<br/>
You're afraid of that. "Like you had a lot to say to Hal?" you say quietly.<br/>
<br/>
As you'd reviewed Hal's memories on the drive last night, you couldn't miss the terrifying treatment he'd got from Fyodor.<br/>
<br/>
Fyodor peers shrewdly at you and chews thoughtfully on a morsel of food. He slurps down the rest of his coffee. "He was reckless, William," Fyodor says. "He almost cost us much. He almost cost us <i>you.</i>" You turn white, not with fear, but embarrassment. "When you are reckless, as he was, you pay a price. The scales have to balance." He holds out his hands, palms up. "He had to be made to feel the consequences, for he scored a great success otherwise. He recovered the Ankh of Thoth, found new leads. Yes, a great success." He raises one palm very high in the air, and rests his other palm on the table. "To bring it into balance, yes, I had to be harsh."<br/>
<br/>
"So Rick will be harsh with me."<br/>
<br/>
"To bring balance to your case, William? Mm." He shifts his hands about, musing over the evidence. "You failed your mission. You share in Hal's success, of course, but you shouldn't have. It was a task beyond you, and you tempted Hal too much. Giuseppe would have known better. <i>Da,</i> he has a good head.<br/>
<br/>
"And at what cost to you? Margaret told me all that you told her. You will carry that grief for the rest of your life. You made a child inside that building, and you had to kill it."<br/>
<br/>
Tears don't form in your eyes; your throat remains free of any lump. All of that was squeezed out of you last night, and you doubt you'll ever shed a tear over it again. But Fyodor is right. The fabric of your heart is torn in a spot, and the scar over it is as thin as tissue paper.<br/>
<br/>
"So how does all that balance out?" you murmur. "What do I still owe?"<br/>
<br/>
"You owe Rick something," Fyodor says. "As for what you owe me--"<br/>
<br/>
He smiles and puts his great mitt on the back of your head. He pats your hair tenderly. The gesture is affectionate and fatherly, if a little clumsy.<br/>
<br/>
Then he slams your forehead into the table. "Idiot!" he screams.</span></div></div>


path: 11221111111222112211112221212112112121122121211212111212211212211112121222111221111
author_id: seuzz
title: The Story from the Other Side
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>And that's all that he says. It is only smiles after that, for you punishment having been meted out, it is not to be spoken or even thought of by anyone ever again. <br/>
<br/>
Fyodor takes you into the living room, and with that same rapt attention asks you tell of the adventure from your point of view. Though your voice grows quiet in a few spots, you tell it confidently, and there is no pain. You are glad of it, for it will be practice for when you talk to Rick.<br/>
<br/>
Then Fyodor tells of what was happening on the outside. Of course, you <i>know</i> what was going on, but it's like watching a great documentary, as you review the events in your own mind while listening to Fyodor's thrilling narration: How Hal's band of "useful idiots" quickly metamorphosed under his direction into "Baker Street Irregulars." They shadowed "Frank" back to Bodley's Court, then shadowed Lewis and Dunsdale to Wyndham, then Dunsdale to Selwyn and Dawes from there until he was intercepted. It wasn't hard for Hal to figure these identities were yours, since it was the odd ones that were going into a building and not coming out again. <br/>
<br/>
A quick search on the sedan's plates led Hal to Professor Hyde-White, who has naturally long been an object of suspicion. That's when the call went to Oxford, to the "Red Army," and Fyodor had hurried up.<br/>
<br/>
But there was nothing to be done until morning, when the Biomedical Engineering building opened. The Irregulars fanned through it, quietly mapping and exploring its geography while Hal gave it a more careful combing over. By mid-afternoon he had pinpointed your likely locations, and constructed an extraction plan.<br/>
<br/>
But he needed a diversion, which Fyodor was only too delighted to provide. So he and six of the Irregulars started a small protest march on the building. Though the Irregulars could never figure out how exactly it happened, by the time they arrived at its front door, their numbers had swollen to six thousand, all chanting and yelling.<br/>
<br/>
That naturally brought out the constabulary, but Fyodor arranged a truce with them so that the building could be evacuated before the protest would start in earnest. Though that protest seemed astonishingly violent on the ground, and would look violent from the air, no one was hurt, even scratched, and no property damaged. But the melee lasted for hours, until all but six of the protestors had melted away into the darkness, as mysteriously as they had appeared.<br/>
<br/>
It was under cover of that protest that Hal had infiltrated the building and liberated you.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You're grinning by the time he's done, but you still have questions. "There's still lots of things I don't understand," you say. "Dunsdale and Dawes had some weird dreams." You tell Fyodor about them, and how similar they were to the experience of being under the ankh's influence. "Why would they dream that?"<br/>
<br/>
Fyodor smiles tightly. "You ask me, William Prescott, how an object might have dangerous influences beyond what it appears to possess?"<br/>
<br/>
"You mean the Ankh of Thoth did something to them when they used it?"<br/>
<br/>
"Probably. I do not know what. But Hal recovered it from the professor's office. We will study it. We will work with the Dunsdale girl--you know she sought out Hal yesterday morning?" You nod. "We will help them."<br/>
<br/>
"And how did the professor find me, and know it was me?" you ask.<br/>
<br/>
Fyodor tugs at his lip and frowns at you thoughtfully. "Do you wear a necklace?" You shake your head. "But you were wearing one last night. I found in the parlor."<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, that. That was Dawes's." You hadn't even noticed it was still on you.<br/>
<br/>
"Ah. Then there is the explanation." He goes into the living room, and when he returns he drops the necklace on the table. "There are many ways to set a spy. This is one. A spell on a personal item, and then a hovering spirit." He points his finger around the room. "I think the professor was watching Dawes all the time, and saw you make the exchange in his rooms." He catches the fearful glance you drop on the necklace, and smiles. "Do not fret. I instantly saw this thing for what it was, and removed the charm. Besides," he shrugs. "The professor is dead."<br/>
<br/>
Which is the third things that puzzles you. "How? Did he kill himself? He seemed to age years and years in only-- A few hours, maybe?"<br/>
<br/>
"When did you first notice it?"<br/>
<br/>
"At the end of my interrogation. After he had me summon Sulva--"<br/>
<br/>
"You did what?"<br/>
<br/>
Yes, you'd glossed over the precise details of the interrogation. "He asked me to show him my <i>imago</i>, and when I was done he asked to see my 'true face'. But I don't have one, not really, because they're all arbitrary. Kali says the danger there is that I might get 'stuck' in between faces, and then Sulva has to catch me." You hesitate, trying to recall something is now very dream-like. "Instead of showing him my 'true face', I think I summoned Sulva."<br/>
<br/>
Fyodor continues to gaze at you piercingly.<br/>
<br/>
"He started screaming, and that broke the spell. I woke up and I was screaming things at him. He was on the floor, I think, and when he got up he looked-- Well, he looked a lot older. He was crazy, he was so mad. He said he would tear me into little pieces."<br/>
<br/>
"This is very interesting," Fyodor says quietly. "I am glad you told me. He screamed when Sulva appeared?" You nod. "Very interesting."<br/>
<br/>
"Why is it--"<br/>
<br/>
"That is not your affair, not yet. But tell me what you screamed at him."<br/>
<br/>
The words are still vivid in your mind. "The curses of--"<br/>
<br/>
"Stop!" Fyodor fetches some paper. "Write. One word at a time, each on its own line. Not as sentences." You do as he asks, and when you're done he sucks on his teeth as he looks at the words you'd said. "Do you have other questions," he asks you, his eyes locked on the paper.<br/>
<br/>
"Only about what happened to the professor."<br/>
<br/>
"Mm. It is not your fault. He was doing a terrible thing to you, you under were an enchantment, you wouldn't have known what you were doing even if you knew what this was--" He trails off and takes a deep sigh. "You killed him, Vasili," he says, and drops the pad back onto the table.<br/>
<br/>
You sit back in shock. "How?"<br/>
<br/>
"With this. It is an anathema. We all can do them, our <i>ousiarchs</i> bestow not only gifts but curses. They are terrible things. I have not studied them deeply, I do not know Sulva's, but I recognize the form beneath the words." He points. "Blight. Shiver. Eclipse." His fingertip traces an invisible pattern on the pad. "I think you sent him to the dark side of the Moon."<br/>
<br/>
You swallow hard. <i>Another death on your shoulders.</i> "I'm so sorry. I didn't--"<br/>
<br/>
"Of course not. It erupted from within. These are dangerous words for you to utter, but they must be used in the right frame of mind if they are to have an effect. That frame of mind comes from training--or from an emotion so overwhelming as to be a form of madness." He inhales deeply, and exhales. "You will speak with Margaret again before you leave."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
That session is short and hard but not overwhelming like last night's. You sit in a chair before her while she looks at you with a curious expression. You know what you have to say and you say it: That as you came out from under an enchantment you laid a fatal curse on your tormentor. You make no excuses as you'd stammered to Fyodor.<br/>
<br/>
She hardly speaks at all. She just sits and gazes at you from an unwinking, kitten-like face while plates of lead--and heavier elements--sit on your shoulders. Before long you are huddled over in your chair, as bent as she, with your hands clasped and resting between your knees. You only speak haltingly, and only after long and crushing thought.<br/>
<br/>
"I killed him. As sure as if I'd pointed a gun at him and pulled the trigger."<br/>
<br/>
"I don't want to kill anyone."<br/>
<br/>
"I'll probably have to kill."<br/>
<br/>
"I'll have to learn how to kill. I'll have to learn when to kill."<br/>
<br/>
"I'll have to learn when <i>not</i> to."<br/>
<br/>
That provokes one of her few questions: "Why?"<br/>
<br/>
"So I see both sides. So I don't kill when I shouldn't. And so I do kill when I should. I was so angry when I killed the professor, and that's all it was. Anger. I was so sad when I killed the golem. When I gave it the drill so it could kill itself. But I have to know the reasons in both cases. I can't be emotional. If I was emotional, I wouldn't have killed the golem. I <i>was</i> emotional, and I killed the professor."<br/>
<br/>
She watches you. Then she puts her hand on the back of your neck and presses your head down. She bows her own, and murmurs in a voice so quiet you can't make out the words. But you know it's a prayer. It goes on a for a very long time. You've only one thing to say in your own prayer, though: "Help me to learn."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Back to Nick Martin's form, and the drive to Heathrow for the eight P.M. flight to Los Angeles. You meditate on the plane, and sleep. The Moon appears before you in a dream. As you watch, it revolves, showing you it's "dark side." But it is very white. This puzzles you, until you understand.<br/>
<br/>
It is covered with bones.<br/>
<br/>
You feel grim as you awake, but not horrified, and are soon distracted by the announcement that you'll be making the final descent into LAX.<br/>
</span></div></div>


path: 112211111112221122111122212121121121211221212112121112122112122111121212221112211111
author_id: seuzz
title: One Night in LA
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>Rick picks you up out front. "You got my clothes?" he asks without preface as you walk up.<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, you noticed they'd gone? Yeah." You pat your bag.<br/>
<br/>
"Would've anyway, even if I hadn't known you were in there. I tried covering for you by making a lot of noise." He snorts. "You really didn't get deep in my head if you didn't notice."<br/>
<br/>
"Notice what?"<br/>
<br/>
"Then you <i>didn't</i> get in deep. I know where I drop everything. A nice mess is like soft sand for footprints."<br/>
<br/>
You redden, and it's not because you'd fucked up on imitating him. "Look, I'm sorry I-- I didn't mean to--"<br/>
<br/>
"Sorry about what, squirt?" he asks in a stony voice.<br/>
<br/>
"Nothing, I guess," you mutter after a pause.<br/>
<br/>
"I didn't think you were talking about anything important." <br/>
<br/>
He leads you to the car, and you drive along silently for a bit before he speaks again. "At least you were smart enough to try that play. You didn't take Natalie with you, though. How come?"<br/>
<br/>
"I couldn't get her through security," you say. "Natalie" is his pet name for his knife. "I just had carry-on, no checked bags."<br/>
<br/>
"How were going to explain it on the other end? It woulda been like me showing up naked."<br/>
<br/>
"I was going to say the airline lost my luggage."<br/>
<br/>
"Pff. I'm going run you <i>hard</i>, squirt, if that's the best you can come up."<br/>
<br/>
"Aren't you going to send me after Joe?"<br/>
<br/>
"I'll listen to your report first. Fyodor didn't tell me anything, except you'd be missing your flight. You must've cocked up bad."<br/>
<br/>
"Can I tell you when we're outta the car?"<br/>
<br/>
"Sure. Kali's been darkening her temples. You can whiten them back up again with your story."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
They let you drop your bag in your bedroom, but you demur on eating, and with Kali and Miko sitting nearby you give Rick your report. They're quiet all the way through, and let you spin out the details. You don't color them, and even when describing your motives you keep it as crisp and professional as you can. For Miko's benefit, you gloss over how you got ahold of Rick's clothes, and leave the impression you tried getting along only with Rick's physical form, not his memories.<br/>
<br/>
They're silent for a very long time afterward, and though they are looking at you, you can tell that they are thinking of your story. "There's a great deal to digest, isn't there," Kali says at last. "That anathema--"<br/>
<br/>
"Cocksucker deserved it," Miko spits. <br/>
<br/>
"That's for Margaret to have judged. You had quite a growth spurt, child," she continues. "Probably Hal's influence."<br/>
<br/>
In truth, you're more worried about the anathema than you are about Rick's critique, but for that reason you'd like to get it out of the way. "I don't want a grade, Rick," you say to him. "Just tell me where I cocked up, and what I should have done."<br/>
<br/>
He snorts. "They gave you every advantage--Fyodor, Mac, Margaret--and you still cocked it up. Of course, you were screwed from the beginning. You should've gone after the kid first, used his <i>imago</i> to get to the cadet. London was the harder assignment. But you still coulda pulled it off if you'd told Mac to go fuck himself."<br/>
<br/>
"What? I couldn't--"<br/>
<br/>
"Sure you could've. Should've. You got too much stupid machismo. Fyodor all but told you Cambridge was off limits. He let you go anyway, but only because he doesn't know how stupid you can be. You're so green you don't know how green you are."<br/>
<br/>
"So what would you have done?" You keep your voice free of any whine, and try asking with genuine curiosity and desire to learn.<br/>
<br/>
"Key moment was when you had the cadet on the floor. That was all Mac's idea, and you'da been perfectly within your rights to lift the cadet's <i>imago</i> thank Mac for his help, and walk out the door."<br/>
<br/>
"That's an asshole thing--"<br/>
<br/>
"Mac's still green too, though he's in the field. He was scared and frustrated. He'da been pissed if you'd left him but so what? You had one month of training, and he threw you into a fight against Fane?" Rick glowers, and it's not at you.<br/>
<br/>
"He didn't know--"<br/>
<br/>
"He <i>knew.</i> He suspected. He sees Fane behind every leaf. Well, Fyodor will have straightened him out."<br/>
<br/>
"What are you going to do to straighten <i>me</i> out, Rick?"<br/>
<br/>
He looks at you. "Give you more exercises, of course. You screwed the London pooch so hard there aren't even any lessons in it for you. Except one." He points at you. "I give you a mission, you do that mission, and nothing else. You try jumping in the pool if you see someone needs help, and you'll just drag them down with you."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
This talk makes you feel bad, of course, but it's far gentler than you thought it would be; even the debriefing after your test at the gym was rougher. But as Rick says, that just shows how badly you bungled it.<br/>
<br/>
There is a little more talk about it. To your surprise, Rick says he wouldn't have marked you down for Fyodor catching you, or for revealing yourself to Hal. "Like Fyodor told you, your job was to get the cadet's face without the cadet knowing it. That's all."<br/>
<br/>
"And it doesn't matter that <i>everyone else</i> knew what I was doing?"<br/>
<br/>
His lip curls. "When you're on a job, you grab every advantage you can, play every dirty trick. If you got friends to help you, you ask them for help. That's what you shoulda done in Oxford. Show up looking like that Martin fella, get Fyodor by himself if the cadet's there, tell him who you are and what you're up to. Fyodor woulda challenged the cadet to a wrestling match, knocked him cold. You'da gotten the <i>imago</i> and been out in five minutes." He shakes his head. "Fyodor and Mac understood that perfectly, which is why they gave you help you even though you didn't ask for it."<br/>
<br/>
It sounds so easy the way he describes it. "I thought you said London was the harder job, harder than--"<br/>
<br/>
"And it was."<br/>
<br/>
"You make it sound like it should've been easy."<br/>
<br/>
"It should've been. I gave you forty-eight hours. Forty-five of those you could've spent sightseeing." He grimaces when you do. "It was hard because you couldn't <i>think</i> your way through it."<br/>
<br/>
"It looks easy afterward," you grumble.<br/>
<br/>
"The solution's always obvious when you get to the end of a whodunit. Your job is to see whodunit before you get to the end of the first page. Preferably before you even open the book."<br/>
<br/>
You stare at him evenly. "And you're telling me Saratoga Falls would be even easier than London?"<br/>
<br/>
"Mm-hmm."<br/>
<br/>
You drum your fingers on the arm of the sofa. "I could go as you, like I did in London," you muse. "Loan me Natalie?" His utter lack of reaction tells you the answer to that idea. "Joe would notice I don't have her, so forget that. I did get Frank's face, I could go as him." Still no reaction. "But I'm sure they're keeping in touch by email and phone."<br/>
<br/>
Rick sips from his tumbler as you continue to mull possibilities.<br/>
<br/>
"Joe likes the girls. I picked up Mary Dunsdale's complete <i>imago.</i> I could use her." No reply from Rick. "I could kidnap and replace someone at Eastman." He's perfectly still.<br/>
<br/>
"Or I could grab every advantage I've got and just ask you to <i>tell</i> me," you say at last.<br/>
<br/>
He actually laughs--a short, dry sound--at that one.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Or,</i> you think to yourself without saying it aloud. <i>I could sneak into Joe's house using my cloak, wait till he's asleep, and just copy him then.</i><br/>
<br/>
"When do I leave?" you ask.<br/>
<br/>
"Soon as you want, squirt. We won't be giving you any money, though. You'll have to survive on your own. Shoot me an email when you're ready to come back."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
And so they get you a ticket for the next morning.<br/>
<br/>
Kali and Miko each have something to say to you, though. Miko corners you first, in Kali's office, and her words bowl you over. "Don't let Rick bully you," she says. "You did okay. You were in over your head and you should've drowned, but you didn't embarrass yourself." You thank her quietly.<br/>
<br/>
Kali, naturally, wants to talk about your time with Margaret, and your misadventures with the golem and the professor. "Rick will judge the practical results of your exercise," she tells you. "Listen to him." You nod. "But your experience ran deeper. What else did you learn?"<br/>
<br/>
"I learned that people can die," you say. "That I can kill them." It's her turn to nod. "That I might have to kill them, even."<br/>
<br/>
"You <i>will</i>, child," she says. "It is easy to see that with your gifts you will many times be in a position where you must make such judgments."<br/>
<br/>
"So I have to learn when to kill and when not to."<br/>
<br/>
"You won't," she says with a plain simplicity. "No one ever learns <i>that.</i>"<br/>
<br/>
You lean against the sink. <i>Why didn't Margaret tell you this?</i> "Then I shouldn't ever kill anyone?"<br/>
<br/>
"No," she says. "But you must learn to read the signs <i>afterwards.</i> And if you kill when you shouldn't, or spare a life when you shouldn't, you must have the grace and courage to realize your error, and accept judgment."<br/>
<br/>
"Thank you for telling me, Kali," you say.<br/>
<br/>
She looks away, and her face becomes a little drawn. "It is easier to tell another than to tell oneself," she murmurs. She doesn't expand on the thought, and leaves you.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
One night's sleep in LA, and then you're back at LAX, on your way to Saratoga Falls. How to approach Joe?</span></div></div>


path: 1122111111122211221111222121211211212112212121121211121221121221111212122211122111112
author_id: seuzz
title: A Little Light on the Subject
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>Rick said he wouldn't give you any money, but by that he meant "support money"; he gave you a hundred for traveling expenses, and so you're able to take a shuttle van from the airport in to Saratoga Falls. It drops you off at Keyserling, near the Crystal Cave.<br/>
<br/>
You look around. It feels like you've never left. Only the change in season, from a warm autumn to a biting cold December tells you that you've been gone. That and the Christmas decorations that are hanging from lampposts, for the holiday is less than a week away.<br/>
<br/>
You zip up your jacket and saunter off toward the house Joe has been staying in. It's only a few blocks away.<br/>
<br/>
It's early in the afternoon, but school will have ended for the winter holiday. Still, you're not surprised that the truck isn't in the driveway. You've thought about how to make the approach, and confidently walk up the sidewalk to ring the doorbell. You're looking like "Nick Martin"; if Joe is home, you'll just pretend to have rung the wrong doorbell while looking for a friend. And if he isn't--<br/>
<br/>
A minute later, having rung the bell two more times, you decide it's clear and tackle the door with your lockpicking tools. A minute later you slip inside and change back to your own form, for it will be easier to explain "Will Prescott's" presence than "Nick Martin's," if it comes to that. You tighten your belt so your pants don't fall down.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Whoa. Party central.</i> Plastic cups are stacked on every surface. Pizza boxes and empty bags of chips cover the table. There's a ripe stench in the air, and you find the garbage is overflowing. There's a pile of dishes in the sink. You wonder if the house has been abandoned.<br/>
<br/>
You make a quick circuit and find Joe's bed unmade and clothes scattered on the floor. One of the towels hanging up in the bathroom is still damp, though, so <i>someone</i> is in residence.<br/>
<br/>
The garage, you find, is piled high with books, the loot from Aubrey Blackwell's library. The stacks rise almost to the ceiling, and you have to carefully wend your way through a maze-like corridor to get in and back out.<br/>
<br/>
After that cursory search you go over the house more slowly, being careful not to disturb anything. Some more of Blackwell's books are in the living room, and there are two more in the bedroom. You raise your eyebrows over one: <i>The Shadows of the Planets,</i> which is a book about the planets and the <i>ousiarchs.</i> Kali had you read it, for it is one of the few books ever published that even obliquely mentions the <i>Stellae Errantes.</i> For that reason, the <i>Stellae</i> secure and spirit away every copy that they can find. So why is Joe reading it? It's a very basic book.<br/>
<br/>
There's another puzzle in the dining room: a large sketch pad covered in sigils and equations. Kali hasn't trained you in the construction of charts, but you recognize the signs. You also recognize the reduced equation at the bottom of one sheet: Sulva. There's another chart on another page, but its final equation isn't one you recognize.<br/>
<br/>
Why is Joe reading up on Sulvae? Is he expecting you? Has Rick (or someone else) tipped him off that you'd be coming?<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You puzzle over this for an hour or so before you hear a truck in the driveway. Your intention is to spy on Joe for a bit, then retreat into the garage until he goes to bed; so you hop over to a corner of the living room where you won't be immediately obvious, so you can catch him in your cloak as he comes through the door.<br/>
<br/>
It works beautifully, flawlessly; even though there's a girl in his arm, you catch her too. They are laughing--Joe loudly, the girl quietly. You should have anticipated he'd be returning home with <i>that</i> kind of company.<br/>
<br/>
As Joe closes the door there's a hard glint of gold off his hair. You blink, and feel the shadow of your cloak shrink and retreat. Joe glances into the living room, and does a double take. He stares right at you. "Whoa, Prescott, I didn't see <i>you</i> there," he says.<br/>
<br/>
There's surprise in his voice, but no shock. You decide to play it cool too. "Hey."<br/>
<br/>
The girl looks at you curiously; Joe jerks his head at you. "That's Will, don't think you've met him. He goes to Westside. I hung out a bit with him last semester. Will, this is Rosalie."<br/>
<br/>
You raise your hand in a brief greeting, and your brain goes into overdrive. <i>He goes to Westside.</i> Joe must think you're the golem that you left behind.<br/>
<br/>
Joe gives Rosalie a little kiss, and murmurs something at her. She blushes and pushes him a little, then retreats down the hall toward the bedroom. When she's gone, he turns to you with a sharp look in his eye. With no further prelude, he marches up to you. "Face off," he says, and raises his open palm.<br/>
<br/>
You can't help flinching back, but he's fast, and you relax and even smile as his fingers probe around the front of your skull. He murmurs. And murmurs again. He shifts his fingers and murmurs again. Frustration sounds in his voice, and he drops his hand to stare at you with a hard, glittering look. "Take a closer look, Joe," you say with a faint smile. "I dropped out of Westside a month ago."<br/>
<br/>
He stares hard, then his eyes pop and his mouth drops. "Fuck me eyeless! Will!" He throws his arms around you and howls with delight. You start to hug him back, but he abruptly shoves you away; you topple onto the sofa. "What are you doing out here?"<br/>
<br/>
"Getting away from Rick for a little bit?"<br/>
<br/>
"Ha!" And then his eyes narrow. "Repeat after me: I'm not up to no good."<br/>
<br/>
"I'm not up to-- Oh, no you don't, Joe." You grin. "You wanna ask me questions, you trust my answers or fuck you."<br/>
<br/>
"Alright, I'll trust you." But he grins too. "Up to a point." He glances over his shoulder. "You popped outta nowhere, dude," he says in a low voice. "You learn some tricks you didn't tell me about?"<br/>
<br/>
"I guess you've got some <i>I</i> didn't know about."<br/>
<br/>
He grin widens. "What were you doing?"<br/>
<br/>
You sigh and give up on your initial plan. "Hiding in plain sight. I can't do it while you're looking at me, but-- Hey, what's her name again?"<br/>
<br/>
He glances again over his shoulder, and you whip your cloak over him. When he turns back he does another double take and looks around the room. He laughs, and then there's another little flash of light. "There you are!" he gasps. "You didn't move, either. How are you--"<br/>
<br/>
"Well, how are you doing your thing?"<br/>
<br/>
"Kali taught me. She calls it 'throwing a little light on the subject'."<br/>
<br/>
"Oh," you groan. "Right. She's used it to catch me once. I didn't know you knew it."<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, and I've started using it since Blackwell disappeared. Taking a tip from Rick, and pausing in the doorway every time I go into a room."<br/>
<br/>
"Joe?" That's Rosalie calling from the back.<br/>
<br/>
He turns red. "Oh yeah. You can come out now! But be dressed!" he shouts. "I thought I was going to get rid you," he says to you, "and then I was gonna--"<br/>
<br/>
"I don't wanna crowd, Joe."<br/>
<br/>
"Pff. No crowding. We're having a party later tonight. I was just gonna squeeze in a little-- Hey, there's my petal blossom!" Rosalie has appeared again. "Come here, I should give you guys a proper introduction. Rosalie Stewart, Will Prescott. Will, Rosalie. Turns out Will's been outta town for a month, and we got some catching up to do." <br/>
<br/>
You and Rosalie exchange another nod, and you get your first real look at her. She's tall and skinny, and seems awkward on her feet, like a colt that hasn't quite found its gait. She has long, straw-colored hair tucked back in a long, rough ponytail, and her clothes seem a little too large for her. There's a kind of boyishness to her, and you're vaguely reminded of Jenny Ashton back at Westside. But it's not a tomboyish air. It's more like her body has outpaced her, and she's not yet used to being a young woman. She doesn't look like a freshman, but--<br/>
<br/>
Then her eyes catch yours. They are large and liquid and brown behind the round, tortoiseshell glasses, with depths of warmth and gravity. They startle you deeply, for these are not the eyes of girl, and they make her manner all the more mysterious. They seem like the eyes of a very wise and mature young woman.<br/>
<br/>
There's a long and awkward pause before Joe speaks. "I'm gonna pour a bucket of cold water over you in a minute, Prescott," he says.<br/>
<br/>
"Huh? Oh, sorry. I just feel like we've met before." You'd blurted this out as an excuse to cover up the way you were staring, but you suddenly realize it's true. There is something extremely familiar about her.<br/>
<br/>
"In a good way, I hope," Joe says. "I'd like you guys to get along."<br/>
<br/>
"I'm sure we will," Rosalie says in a quiet, shy voice.<br/>
<br/>
"Any friend of Joe's," you say, and smile back.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Joe has said that you and he have some catching up to do, and Rosalie leaves you alone with the excuse that she can do some straightening up before the party. Joe lets her, and plops onto the sofa next to you. "So cut the bullshit about getting away from Rick," he says. "He sent you."<br/>
<br/>
"What makes you--?"<br/>
<br/>
"You were hiding in my living room, Prescott, using <i>technique.</i>" His eyes glint. "You were supposed to <i>do</i> something. What?"<br/>
<br/>
You can still complete your mission. But your gut tells you something odd is going on here. If you come clean with Joe, and force him to come clean with you, what's the worst Rick can do? Give you a replacement mission?</span></div></div>


path: 11221111111222112211112221212112112121122121211212111212211212211112121222111221111121
author_id: seuzz
title: A Little More Light on the Subject
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>"I was supposed to sneak something off you," you tell Joe. "Without you realizing it."<br/>
<br/>
"What?"<br/>
<br/>
You hold his eye. "Your jockstrap."<br/>
<br/>
He busts out laughing. "No, seriously. I'll worm it out of you one way or another, you know."<br/>
<br/>
"You got a copy of <i>Shadows of the Planets</i>?" you ask, improvising wildly.<br/>
<br/>
"You know I do."<br/>
<br/>
"I was supposed to smuggle it out."<br/>
<br/>
"So why were you lurking instead of dashing in and out while I wasn't here?"<br/>
<br/>
"Too easy." You take out your cell phone. "I was supposed to film myself stealing it while you were in the room."<br/>
<br/>
"Clever." He holds out his hand. "Lemme see."<br/>
<br/>
Slowly--for you don't like the look in his eye--you hand the phone over. He taps at the screen, and puts it to his ear. "Hi Rick," he says in a quiet whine. "So, I'm calling to say I fucked up."<br/>
<br/>
<i>Bastard! He's using your voice to try tricking Rick into spilling the real plan. You tense.</i><br/>
<br/>
He winks at you and listens. "Oh, okay. I guess that would be cool. Fly outta here, or go back to LA first?" He listens some more. "Okay, I'll check my email. I'm really sorry, Rick, I--" He frowns, looks at the phone, and hangs up. "You're welcome," he says to you.<br/>
<br/>
"Thanks. So what did Rick say? I'm used to him yelling at me by now."<br/>
<br/>
"No yelling. He just said you're to go to London and try the same thing with Frank."<br/>
<br/>
You keep your face neutral, but allow yourself a small smile of relief. <i>Bless you, Rick, for being paranoid.</i> "That'll be nice. I'd like to see Frank."<br/>
<br/>
"It'll be easier for you, too. Frank can't do what I can." He throws at hard fist at your stomach, but pulls his punch at the last second. "But if he catches you, he'll pound you in the gut till you can't shit straight."<br/>
<br/>
"I'm getting a boarding pass or something by email?" Joe nods. "Well, I won't be flying out tonight, so I can stay for your party."<br/>
<br/>
"No offense, but I was thinking you should skip it. There's some guys from Westside coming--I got a big circle these days--and, well, you're not popular over there."<br/>
<br/>
<i>Oh yeah. That golem. The one that still carries Blackwell's curse.</i> "What's going on with my replacement?"<br/>
<br/>
"I don't keep track, figure it's best to leave it alone as a lure for Blackwell. But I hear stories. Don't trouble yourself over them. The thing isn't you anymore."<br/>
<br/>
It does trouble you, but you put it out of your mind. "So I should go entertain myself this evening, is that what you're saying?"<br/>
<br/>
"It's not like that," he says, sounding wounded. <br/>
<br/>
"I understand. I'm going to have to get used to being invisible." Now Joe <i>does</i> look hurt. "I'll take in a movie. Rick gave me a little money. When can I come back? You mind me crashing with you?"<br/>
<br/>
"Of course not. But don't show back up until--" He turns a little pink. "Three? Three-thirty?"<br/>
<br/>
<i>Jesus!</i><br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
He makes it up to you by giving you twenty dollars of his own, and drops you off downtown so you can get yourself some dinner. You splurge, but not until after you call Rick. "So tell me," you say when he picks up. "Does Joe know about that rickshaw you keep in Little Tokyo?"<br/>
<br/>
You think you've overdone it until you hear his dry laugh. "Is that going to be our password? What was that call from the kid about?"<br/>
<br/>
"He thought he caught me and was trying to check up." You tell him of your original plan to get his <i>imago,</i> how he caught you, and how you improvised a bullshit assignment to throw him off. "I think I'm still on track to get it off him."<br/>
<br/>
"Don't get cocky, squirt. But I'll send you an email to help cover your story. That'll put you under a deadline though. Forty-eight hours to catch up with the kid, and then you're coming back home."<br/>
<br/>
"I can do it, Rick."<br/>
<br/>
"Don't get cocky," he repeats.<br/>
<br/>
You're far from feeling cocky, and duck back down a few alleys and shift your face to Nick Martin's before reemerging, to take a leisurely supper at a nice Thai restaurant. You then hit a bar, where you have a few drinks and shoot some pool and flirt with some girls--who flirt back, and you ache to bed them--and then take in a midnight showing at the downtown cinema. At around three you flag down a cab--having changed back to "Will Prescott" in the dark theater--and go back out to Joe's. His is the only vehicle out front, but you call first to see if the party's done. It is, and he opens the door as you walk up. "How was it?" you ask.<br/>
<br/>
"Eh." He shrugs. You cock an eyebrow. "Alright, it was so fucking awesome even the cops stopped by, but I don't want you feeling--"<br/>
<br/>
"Okay, I'm glad for you. Really. Anyway, I'm beat."<br/>
<br/>
He shows you to the very small and tidy bedroom in the back where Frank never slept. "Extra blankets in the closet," he says, and wishes you goodnight.<br/>
<br/>
But you lay awake, staring at the ceiling, furiously trying to work up the courage to follow through with the obvious next step. You should just creep into his bedroom and copy him in his sleep, as you'd originally meant to do. But how light a sleeper is he? Does he really believe he tripped up your assignment? Has he set a booby trap for you, in case you try sneaking in? Of course, he won't kill you or anything if he catches you; but killing you would be nicer than the joyful torture he'll pour on your head if he catches you doing what you really mean to do.<br/>
<br/>
As you stare up into the darkness, you hear his door open and close. You sit, and then jump to your feet. This sounds like a possible chance.<br/>
<br/>
You open your door, cloak at the ready, and peer out. The light's on under the bathroom door. If you got into the bedroom while he's in the bathroom-- Oh, but he'll probably "throw a little light on the subject" when he goes back in. Can you sneak in after him? No, he'll close the door too quickly.<br/>
<br/>
You're fidgeting with worry and impatience--and fidget harder when it occurs to you that <i>Rick</i> would yell at you for fidgeting--when the bathroom door open. You suppress a gasp.<br/>
<br/>
It's Rosalie. You had no idea she was still here. <br/>
<br/>
But you get the cloak over her, and then instinct takes over. You trot up quickly behind her and put your palm to the bare spot between her tank top and her panties. You catch her as she topples backward. <br/>
<br/>
You let out a sigh. She feels good in your arms.<br/>
<br/>
No time for that. You swing her up--<br/>
<br/>
Oh God, you should change back into Phil Dawes or someone before you bust out your back.<br/>
<br/>
--and stagger to Frank's bedroom with her, dropping her on the bed. She'll be out for only ten minutes, but to be sure you press your fingertip to her again. Now it'll be eight-thirty before she stirs.<br/>
<br/>
You suck in your breath. <i>Bedroom work.</i><br/>
<br/>
You don't need to go that far, but it suddenly does feel like a violation. This girl, this awkward, innocent girl. You're going to use her appearance to get close to a friend. Not to do anything bad. But still, it feels like--<br/>
<br/>
You purse your lips. <i>It feels like the twilight world where spies live.</i> Suddenly, you very much want to see Margaret Dillon.<br/>
<br/>
Well, no time for that. You lay your palm on Rosalie's forehead, but you only draw on her form, and leave her mind and memories untouched. You also leave her in her things.<br/>
<br/>
It's dark, and you've not looked in a mirror, so you hardly feel the change after you've drawn her <i>imago</i> on. There's an extra rocking in your hips, and your hair falls down past your shoulder blades and to the small of your back, but otherwise it feels a lot like your old, regular body. You step lightly along the hallway to Joe's door, and push it open.<br/>
<br/>
You're not sure what to expect: A flash of light, a punch to the face, a hard tweak to your nipples, Joe's boisterous laugh at having caught you? You don't expect what you get: a loud, sawing snore.<br/>
<br/>
You tiptoe over. The dim glow from a streetlight filters through the curtains, and by it you see Joe sprawled on his back, sheets down to his waist and his chest bare. <i>Sssssnnrrrrgggkhh!</i> he goes.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Could be a trap,</i> you think. Gently, you lay a graceful hand on the side of his neck; it is very warm. He doesn't stir, except to snore again. You bring up the sigil. He takes a deep, shuddering breath, and ceases to snore. You lean in and listen. To your relief, he's still breathing; he's just fallen into a deeper slumber, one that he won't wake from until Rosalie does. You put your other palm on his forehead. His mind and body pour into yours. It's like molten gold. You pour it into a mold and fashion it into one of your collection, setting it next to Frank's.<br/>
<br/>
That done, you return to the other bedroom, and draw on Joe's <i>imago</i> before picking her up.<br/>
<br/>
Now she does feel very good in your arms; you feel very tingly down below.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Wow, Joe's got it bad for her,</i> you think as you carry her into the bedroom, to gently lay her next to him, and draw the sheets over them. This isn't a one-night stand, or a flirtation, this is--<br/>
<br/>
It's a good thing you knocked them out, because you gasp very loudly.<br/>
<br/>
Rosalie is a <i>Stellae.</i> And Joe hasn't told anyone of her yet.</span></div></div>


path: 112211111112221122111122212121121121211221212112121112122112122111121212221112211111212
author_id: seuzz
title: The Problem of Rosalie
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>"You're a <i>shit,</i> Prescott!" Joe yells. "A spying little <i>shit!</i>"<br/>
<br/>
You hang your head. "You can hit me if you want, Joe," you say quietly. "I won't hit back."<br/>
<br/>
You do flinch, though, as his fist crashes onto the dining room table in front of you. "I'll do worse than that, you grubby little, shit-stained <i>asshole!</i>"<br/>
<br/>
"I didn't mean to--"<br/>
<br/>
"Bullshit! Look at me!"<br/>
<br/>
You raise your eyes but keep your chin down. Joe's eyes flare.<br/>
<br/>
"So Rick told you to copy my <i>imago,</i>" he hisses. His words are like napalm squirting in your face. "Brilliant! But he didn't say <i>anything</i> about sneaking through my brain like a--" And without realizing it, he switches into German. Or maybe he does mean to switch. Certainly it sounds harsher than the English would. You think you recognize the words "Stasi" and "Gestapo."<br/>
<br/>
"It was an accident," you say. "I had to carry her back to your room. I put your <i>imago</i> on to--"<br/>
<br/>
<i>Crack!</i> You taste blood, and stars explode in your head. Through the ringing in your ears you hear Joe's voice. "You just think long and hard about <i>why</i> you put my form on when you picked her up! Take a good look at yourself! If any of those faces are capable of showing the <i>truth!</i>"<br/>
<br/>
It's ten o'clock the next morning. You'd prodded Joe aside and told him you needed to talk to him. He'd given you a queer look, and hesitated a little, and a few minutes later had drawn Rosalie off the side. Shortly after, she'd gotten herself put together and gone home, you presume. (Though you have to wonder about her living arrangements, if she was able to spend the night with Joe.) And once she was gone, you'd come clean with Joe: What you are now able to do, what you did last night, and what you now know. It had taken him a minute or so to process. And then ...<br/>
<br/>
"If I was any of those things you called me, Joe," you say in a slow voice muffled by pain, "we wouldn't be talking now. I just threw away a passing grade for Rick. I was supposed to get back to LA without you knowing that I'd--"<br/>
<br/>
"But you couldn't wait to <i>brag</i> to me!"<br/>
<br/>
You've been feeling very bad up to this point, very guilty, but now a little flame of anger and resentment lights in your breast. " I'm not bragging . And if I was being a spy, I'da kept my mouth shut. Gone back to Rick and told <i>him</i> about her being a <i>Stellae.</i>"<br/>
<br/>
"So why <i>are</i> you telling me?"<br/>
<br/>
"Because it's not right, keeping it a secret."<br/>
<br/>
The flames in his eyes freeze into pillars of ice. He points a stiff finger at you. "Listen, Prescott. Three months ago you were a nobody little shit in a shit little town nobody ever heard, the high point of whose existence involved jerking off in the dead of night when no one could hear you. <i>Two</i> months ago you were working with a black magician and hijacking cheerleaders' bodies so you could finger yourself in them. <i>One</i> month ago you flew off to LA to finally start getting your shit together.<br/>
<br/>
"And me? I been in this company for ten years, ever since I was seven. I've got a decade of seniority on you <i>and</i> I'm a fuckload smarter. So where the <i>fuck</i> do you get off telling me what is and is not wrong?"<br/>
<br/>
You wipe your mouth with the back of your hand, and look at the crimson stain. The pain in your jaw is no longer sharp. Now it's just a hard throbbing. "You're right," you calmly say. "You <i>are</i> smarter, got more experience." Joe shows a little smirk of triumph. "So explain it to me. Why is it right to keep Rosalie a secret?"<br/>
<br/>
The change of expression on his face would be comical if it weren't frightening; and if it were Frank, you'd probably now be picking yourself up off the bedroom floor and looking back at him through a Will Prescott-shaped hole in the wall. As it is, he turns around and stalks back into the kitchen, where he loudly takes out a frying pan and loudly slams it on the stove and loudly starts making some kind of late breakfast.<br/>
<br/>
You knew it was going to be tough dealing with Joe and the topic. You didn't know how hard it was going to be, though. You weren't in his head long enough, and got out of it almost as soon as you'd realized the situation.<br/>
<br/>
Rosalie had shown up at Eastman High School about a month ago, right around the time you'd left for LA. She and Joe hadn't run into each other right away. It was only in the last week that they'd really met and connected. But they'd talked--and done more, and quickly--and Rosalie had said things that intrigued Joe. He'd doodled some partial charts on her. The doodles intrigued him more. He drew her out, surreptitiously, and finished them. Those were <i>her</i> charts, not yours, he'd left on the dining room table.<br/>
<br/>
And that's about all you know. You'd whipped his <i>imago</i> off almost as soon as you'd seen the really shocking thing: that he hadn't told anyone that he'd found a <i>second Stellae</i> in Saratoga Falls.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Stellae</i> are extremely rare: In your brief time and your small circle you've met a good chunk of all the ones known of in the world. To find two new ones in the same town, and to stumble on two Sulvae, is astonishing.<br/>
<br/>
Joe drops into the chair opposite you. "If you want something to eat, you can fix it yourself."<br/>
<br/>
"I want to talk, Joe."<br/>
<br/>
"No one's stopping you." He shoves some eggs in his mouth.<br/>
<br/>
"I really do want you to explain it to me. I wasn't in your head long, and I got out of it as soon as I realized you were--"<br/>
<br/>
"I was what?"<br/>
<br/>
"That you weren't telling anyone."<br/>
<br/>
"Judging me based on <i>partial information,</i>" he says in a bitter tone. "That's so <i>very</i> generous of you, Prescott."<br/>
<br/>
"So fill me in, Joe."<br/>
<br/>
He shovels more food in without looking at you. "So what <i>do</i> you know," he finally mumbles.<br/>
<br/>
"That you met Rosalie at Eastman only a week or so ago. You liked her. You did some charts on her. You found out she was a Sulva, and that you hadn't told anyone you'd found her."<br/>
<br/>
He snorts. "And that's all? Didn't snoop around until you figured out my fucking <i>reasons?</i>"<br/>
<br/>
"No, I wanted to hear them from you."<br/>
<br/>
"Well, if you know her charts, you know she's rare."<br/>
<br/>
"I know about Sulvae being rare, Joe. What's that--?"<br/>
<br/>
"And what do you know about the other one?"<br/>
<br/>
You have to shrug. "I jumped out of your <i>imago</i> so fast I didn't see what it was."<br/>
<br/>
He looks up at you, and then looks to the side with a lop-sided grin you don't like; it's the grin of a guy so sick with anger that he's barely keeping himself from throwing something heavy at your face. "So fucking typical. You see 'Sulva' and instantly--"<br/>
<br/>
"Can we talk about <i>me</i> after I understand <i>you</i>?"<br/>
<br/>
He glowers hard, and then speaks very softly. "Glundandra. She's also a Glundandran."<br/>
<br/>
"Like Charles and Fyodor," you say after pause.<br/>
<br/>
"Exactly," he says. <br/>
<br/>
And then his eyes twist up.<br/>
<br/>
"It means Dad's going to die soon," he says with a quiet choke in his voice.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Kali had explained the odd facts about Glundandrae to you, but only in a very cursory fashion, and Joe fills in the gaps. There never seem to be more than four of them at any one time, usually two who are very old and two who are very young. The young ones are invariably born ten or fifteen years before the death of the old ones; and when the old ones are not that old--when they are middle-aged or even young themselves--the appearance of a third invariably presages the death of one of the older ones.<br/>
<br/>
"Glundandrae run things," Joe says. "That's their talent, putting thing in their rightful place, drawing out the best from the rest of us. The head of the <i>Stellae</i> isn't always a Glundandran. For hundreds of years, before the proper exploration of the world, we had to make do with the ones that happened to pop up around the Mediterranean and Atlantic. But we've got lots of records, from around the world, from the other societies. It seems to be a law of the stars. There are two, then there's a conjunction of four, and then there are only two again. The new ones."<br/>
<br/>
"So Rosalie's appearance forecasts the death of one. It could be Fyodor."<br/>
<br/>
"She's the fourth. And she's older than the one we found a few years ago. Rosalie will be eighteen in a few weeks, Will. She's the same age as you, even has the same birthday. That's something else that's weird. And Malaika is already nine. <br/>
<br/>
"I thought Dad would be with us for at least another fifteen years," he continues after a pause. "I thought Malaika would foretell Fyodor's death. Dad's would be at least fifteen, maybe twenty years off. But it turns out Malaika's bringing up the rear. Dad and Fyodor could go any day now. At most, they've only got five years in their hourglasses."<br/>
<br/>
You're quiet for a very long time, and let him finish eating. "Then they really have to know, don't they?" you say when he's done. "So they can prepare."<br/>
<br/>
"I was hoping--kind of hoping, in a half-assed way--that if I kept her hidden, it would mean it didn't count. Maybe being a Sulvan too, her being Glundandran wouldn't signify."<br/>
<br/>
He gets up with a sigh. "But you're right. I have to tell them."<br/>
<br/>
It sounds like he's forgiven you. But his concern has touched you too. And, dimly, you think you see a way of helping him. For the coincidences around Rosalie <i>are</i> very odd.</span></div></div>


path: 1122111111122211221111222121211211212112212121121211121221121221111212122211122111112121
author_id: seuzz
title: The Twilight World of Spies
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>"You <i>would</i> be so fucking persuasive, Joe," you say. He wheels to look at you from the kitchen. "I'm serious. Those sound like good reasons for keeping quiet."<br/>
<br/>
"They're bullshit reasons, Will. I'm sorry I yelled at you, because you're right. I'll get you something for that lip."<br/>
<br/>
"I can take care of it," you say. The world goes grey as you dive within yourself; after a moment's thought, you pull Nick's <i>imago</i> about yourself.<br/>
<br/>
Joe blinks. "A lot more convenient than masks," he murmurs.<br/>
<br/>
You smile but otherwise ignore his interjection. "I'm not just thinking about what you told me," you say. "I'm thinking about Rosalie. There's a lot of weird coincidences. Two Sulvae, showing up in Saratoga Falls. Two Sulvae who were born on the same day."<br/>
<br/>
"She's not from here," Joe says. "I actually don't know where she's from."<br/>
<br/>
"You didn't need that for her chart?"<br/>
<br/>
"No. She was kind of evasive about it, actually. But I didn't need it, her alignments just leaped out."<br/>
<br/>
"Elusive, huh? But there's more to it than that." You rub your cheek, and realize that "Nick" is now sporting a little stubble; you should shave. "There's something really familiar about her. I can't put my finger on it, but I feel like I know her."<br/>
<br/>
"I've checked her for a mask," Joe says in a slightly stony voice. "Check her every night, if <i>that's</i> what you're--"<br/>
<br/>
"She sleeps here every night?"<br/>
<br/>
"No, just for the last few--"<br/>
<br/>
"Where does she live?"<br/>
<br/>
"Who is this asshole you're suddenly looking like?" Joe demands in a peevish voice. "You're acting a whole lot 'older' suddenly." He puts "older" in scare quotes.<br/>
<br/>
"Nick Martin. Well, that's the name I've given him. His original has training in law enforcement."<br/>
<br/>
"No wonder I feel like I'm talking to a fucking cop," Joe glowers. "It's even worse than with Frank."<br/>
<br/>
You allow yourself to look a little shifty. "You can talk to Frank if you prefer." Joe's eyebrows twitch. "I got back from Oxford two days ago."<br/>
<br/>
"Fuck! Who else have you--?"<br/>
<br/>
"You don't want to know. Anyway, just tell me more about Rosalie. Like, where she lives."<br/>
<br/>
"Psssh!" Joe leans on the countertop and kicks a cabinet door. "She's kind of evasive about that, too. I haven't pressed her. She's kind of like a fawn, startles easily."<br/>
<br/>
<i>Fawn. Colt.</i> Both words fit her. But neither one fits her eyes.<br/>
<br/>
Maybe it's Glundandra that you see in her eyes.<br/>
<br/>
"I don't want you to accuse me of snooping again, Joe, but maybe we ought to check her background out before telling everyone else about her?"<br/>
<br/>
His face shifts, and for a moment you think he's going to get pissed again. But he just quietly asks, "Now <i>you're</i> talking about keeping her a secret?"<br/>
<br/>
"Just until you can write up a full report on her. How long have you known her, you said? A week? Would you have spotted a new <i>Stellae</i>, especially a new Sulva, and gotten all the notes done on her, and reported back on her, all within a week?"<br/>
<br/>
There's an old popsicle stick on the counter, and to your disgust Joe sticks it in his mouth and chews on it. "Wouldn't work, if you're talking about covering up the delay. I already told her what she is, and who we are. It'd all come out."<br/>
<br/>
Then there's nothing else you do: "Then let's get all the pertinent facts down." Joe rolls his eyes at the word 'pertinent'. "Get things wrapped up ASAP. It'll be a hell of a Christmas present for everyone, but it's better than the alternative."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You talk some more about what you'll need to find out about Rosalie. To your dismay, Joe grows frostier and frostier as you go along. You finally ask him point-blank what his problem is. He tosses the by now well-worn popsicle stick aside and fixes you with a hard look. "So you're just going to suck all that stuff out of her, like you did with me and Frank? This Nick Martin guy?"<br/>
<br/>
Actually, you'd been assuming you'd just give Rosalie a courteous interview. But now you see things from a direction you hadn't seen them from before.<br/>
<br/>
You had lifted Frank's mind and memories, because you needed them to help Hal out. You had ripped Hal's from him so you could escape Professor Hyde-White. You had grabbed Rick's when, in a panic, you'd tried escaping him. You could justify your action as a necessity in the heat of the moment.  But last night, when you had taken Joe's, even on Rick's orders, you had felt much more ambivalent. It was that "twilight world of espionage," and it now hits you how easily you could be a spy against your own allies--and against the people you want to be your friends. And it would be very easy for them to assume that that is exactly how you are acting, either on your own behalf, or at the behest of others.<br/>
<br/>
Maybe it's the nerves of Nick Stevenson--the conscientious wannabe-cop you copied--that jangle with revulsion, but you'd like to think they're your own.<br/>
<br/>
You've been staring at Joe all this time, and he's been staring back. You feel the steely determination form in your eyes. "I wouldn't do that to her, Joe. Not without her permission. She's one of us."<br/>
<br/>
"You did it to me. You did it to Frank."<br/>
<br/>
"And I shouldn't have. I should have told Rick to go fuck himself." You twist in your chair and look away. "Oh, fuck me, Joe, what have I been doing?"<br/>
<br/>
"You were doing what Rick told you to do."<br/>
<br/>
You snatch up a pencil that's laying nearby and squeeze it in your fist. "It stops now. In fact--"<br/>
<br/>
You close your eyes, and rip Frank's and Joe's and Rick's and Hal's and Miko's and Rosalie's <i>imago</i> from the constellation, and incinerate them. Grimly, you come close to doing the same to Jack Lewis, Mary Dunsdale, and Phil Dawes, but leave them in place for the moment. Joe's looking at you quizzically when you open your eyes again. "What was that?" he asks.<br/>
<br/>
"I just got rid of them," you say. "Your <i>imago,</i> Frank's, a few more I picked up--"<br/>
<br/>
"Are you nuts?" he exclaims, his eyes popping. "You just flunked your assignment for Rick!"<br/>
<br/>
"I already flunked in London, and I already flunked here," you say. "I was supposed to get away without you knowing I'd lifted it. And I'll take the F because I shouldn't have done it anyway."<br/>
<br/>
"I don't want to sound like an asshole after yelling at you," Joe says grimly. "But I kind of wish you hadn't."<br/>
<br/>
Now your eyes pop. "Why?"<br/>
<br/>
"Because I could find it useful having a twin. We all could."<br/>
<br/>
"You already have--"<br/>
<br/>
"A <i>tangible</i> one," he says. "And didn't Rick say something like that? That you might have to double for us sometimes?"<br/>
<br/>
"Well, yeah," you admit.<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, it's just one extreme or the other with you, isn't it? You're either working for a black magician or you're whiter than Wonder Bread."<br/>
<br/>
Thing is, he's right. You did act hastily. But you still know you're right. "Joe," you say. "If you want me to copy your <i>imago,</i> I will. But you have to give me permission first."<br/>
<br/>
He holds your eye, and smiles faintly. "Fair enough."<br/>
<br/>
Possibly he was about to give you permission, but at that moment the door opens, and Rosalie walks in. Her cheeks are bright red from the cold, and she has a Christmas tree.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Joe whoops and capers excitedly about the room, leaving Rosalie even more breathless than when she came in. He bustles the tree about from corner to corner, looking for the best place to put it. "Shit, we're gonna have to go out and buy some lights and ornaments! Awesome!" He kisses her impulsively. <br/>
<br/>
She blushes and pushes him away, and her eyes twinkle, and for about the tenth time since coming in the door gives you a queer sort of sidelong look. This time Joe catches it. "We can do that after lunch," he says. "Have you eaten?" She shakes her head. "We'll get something to eat in a bit. Will and me actually have to talk to you about some stuff."<br/>
<br/>
"Sure," she says. "Where is he?"<br/>
<br/>
She asks while looking directly at you. You and Joe look back at her, and then you look at each other. You both realize it simultaneously.<br/>
<br/>
You're still looking like Nick Martin.<br/>
<br/>
"Oh. Yeah," Joe says, and tugs his ear. "That's one thing to talk about. I guess I should make a proper introduction now. Rosalie, I'd like you to meet Will Prescott. Of the <i>Stellae Errantes.</i> He's got a couple of different faces."<br/>
<br/>
"When I'm looking this," you say, and feel your own cheeks redden. "You can call me Nick Martin." You hold out your hand.<br/>
<br/>
She takes it stiffly, and her grip is cold and awkward. She swallows hard as she stares at you. "It's nice to meet you, Mr. Martin." You feel a tremble pass through her.<br/>
<br/>
Joe sucks in his cheeks. "He'd like to ask you a few questions," he says, and avoids her eye.<br/>
<br/>
Again, she swallows. "Of course."<br/>
<br/>
"Just to get to know you," you say, and gesture her toward the sofa. You want to kick Joe in the balls for sticking you in the role of interrogator. "To start with, where are you from?"<br/>
<br/>
She sits, and you sit, and she takes a deep breath and-- Is there something wrong with her throat? For the third time in thirty seconds, she swallows hard. She shrugs. "No place you've ever heard of. A little town called Cuthbert."<br/>
<br/>
Your world freezes. Now you know why she seems so familiar. And you urgently want to shut down this inquiry--one you insisted on launching. For once Joe knows who she is, all those tender feelings you know he has for her will evaporate, to be replaced by cold, hard suspicion.</span></div></div>


path: 11221111111222112211112221212112112121122121211212111212211212211112121222111221111121212
author_id: seuzz
title: Rosalie Tells a Story
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>It's certainly too late to abort the interview; it would look even weirder if you did try to abort it than if you didn't. You can only pray the revelations aren't as damaging as you fear they will be.<br/>
<br/>
So: "Cuthbert," you say in as neutral a voice as possible. "Where's that?"<br/>
<br/>
"A couple of hundred miles from here, up in the mountains."<br/>
<br/>
"A small town? It sounds rustic."<br/>
<br/>
"Yes." She smiles shyly. "Saratoga Falls really is the big city by comparison."<br/>
<br/>
"Did you come from a big family?"<br/>
<br/>
She takes a deep breath. "Yes and no. I'm an only child, but I've lots of aunts and uncles and cousins. It's a very big extended family."<br/>
<br/>
"Lots of Stewarts, then?"<br/>
<br/>
"Yes. Lots of Gibsons and Johnsons, too. Mostly Shabblemans, though." She cocks her head. "There are some Martins up there too."<br/>
<br/>
<i>Martin.</i> Your middle name. It's a great-grandfather's surname, and like your great-grandmother, he also originally hailed from Cuthbert. "Maybe I've got family up there," you say in what you hope is a light and unserious tone. "So how did your family come to leave this ... bucolic little burg?"<br/>
<br/>
Joe gives you a sidelong look, and you try to force Nick Stevenson's mannerisms back down. With "bucolic," you realize, you were beginning to sound like a police interrogator gathering up the threads so he can hang his suspect.<br/>
<br/>
Rosalie takes a deep breath, and swallows, and takes another deep breath, and folds her hands and looks down. When the wait for her reply has passed through the state of awkwardness and become actively painful, Joe slips in. "It's probably none of our business, Nick," he says quietly.<br/>
<br/>
"Of course not," you agree. "Personal reasons are just that. Pers--"<br/>
<br/>
"I came down to look for someone," Rosalie says in a rush. "One of my relatives." Her voice becomes ragged. "He came down here about month ago, and he never came back and we never heard from him."<br/>
<br/>
Joe's eyes turn liquid with empathy; you try to imitate him, though your heart is actually beating hard with fear. <i>Will Shabbleman.</i> That's who she has to be looking for.<br/>
<br/>
Will Shabbleman came from Cuthbert. Will Shabbleman, who Blackwell fetched during that week when you had vanished inside the <i>Libra.</i> Will Shabbleman, who he groomed and pitted against you in a battle to see who his "true acolyte" would be. Will Shabbleman, who Blackwell double-crossed; who he'd ordered you to drag down into a secret room, never to see again.<br/>
<br/>
But Joe is speaking. "Oh, Rosalie," he says in a soft voice. "That's-- I wish you'd told me, when I told you about myself. We're experts at tracking people down. Aren't we?"<br/>
<br/>
The last question is addressed to you, and you stammer out an affirmative.<br/>
<br/>
Joe draws Rosalie into a close embrace. "We'll help you find him, no trouble, lickety-split, you'll see." He releases her. "What can you tell us about him? What's his name?"<br/>
<br/>
"Will," she says. "Will Shabbleman."<br/>
<br/>
Now it's your turn to swallow hard. <i>Fucking confirmation.</i><br/>
<br/>
Rosalie's eyes roll, showing their whites. "He's two years older than me. Twenty. Kind of tall, and dark."<br/>
<br/>
"Sounds like Frank," you interject. They both ignore you. She tries stammering out a little more.<br/>
<br/>
Then her cell phone rings.<br/>
<br/>
She jumps with a gasp and takes it out; a long strand of hair falls into her face as she looks at the screen, and her knuckles whiten as she grasps the strand and pulls it back. "I have to take this," she says, and runs back into the bedroom.<br/>
<br/>
You look at Joe, but he's looking past you at the bedroom, his eyes pools of pity and concern. "Poor kid," he murmurs. He sighs and trudges into the kitchen.<br/>
<br/>
You settle back, trying not to grimace, and force yourself not to cross your arms. He's obviously not put the clues together; but why should he? Sure, he and Frank ran into Will Shabbleman back when you were still working for Blackwell, but they don't know his name. Do they? You don't remember.<br/>
<br/>
You wait for the others to return, worrying whether you should tell Joe or not. Minutes pass. There are no noises from the kitchen, which finally strikes you as odd. But before you can rise to investigate, Rosalie reappears. She looks at you, then does a double take into the dining room and goes in there. You hear the murmur of voices, but can't make out the words. You let them talk.<br/>
<br/>
But finally you can't resist anymore, and go in to join them. Joe and Rosalie are standing close together, but not touching. Rosalie looks tense. Joe glances up at your entrance; he murmurs to her, and with a wan smile she brushes past you. You watch as she leaves, walking slowly, out the front door. When it closes behind her, you turn to Joe. "So what are we doing?" you ask.<br/>
<br/>
"Gonna look for this cousin of hers," he says. "She's going to pack a few things, then the two of us are going to drive up to Cuthbert. Pick up some photographs, other personal items, talk to the last people to see him. Then come back and look for him."<br/>
<br/>
You really don't like the idea of Joe going off to Cuthbert with her. "Are we going to hold back on telling--"<br/>
<br/>
"Of course not. You have to go back to LA anyway. Tell Rick and Kali all about her. I'll put my notes together for you." He starts to brush past you.<br/>
<br/>
"Why can't I go with you?" you ask, and catch at his arm.<br/>
<br/>
Your hand goes through him.<br/>
<br/>
He gives you a wry glance, and vanishes.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Fuck.</i> "Joe!" you call.<br/>
<br/>
The door to the garage opens, and Joe comes in. He's on the phone, and as you glare at him he ostentatiously pulls the door shut and gives it a hard rap. "I'll remind him," he says, and hangs up.<br/>
<br/>
"What's going on?" you demand. <br/>
<br/>
"I'm getting rid of you," he says. "This isn't your business. I just called Rick, and he told me to pass on a message: You do your assignments, and don't try to do someone else's. You're flying back to LA tonight."<br/>
<br/>
You feel the choler rising within you. "And did you tell him about Rosalie?"<br/>
<br/>
"No. You can tell them about her when you get back."<br/>
<br/>
"And what if I want to go with you? What if this business--?" You stop short, before you can say anything really damaging.<br/>
<br/>
But he's already anticipated what you were going to say. "What if this business concerns you? Is that it?"<br/>
<br/>
You give up. "Sure. Pretend it does, and tell me why I still shouldn't go."<br/>
<br/>
He smiles, as though at a private joke, and grasps your elbow. "I appreciate your concern, Prescott," he says quietly. "Your concern and your tact. But Dad didn't raise no dummies, and Rick doesn't let them graduate. I know it's a trap." His smile widens a little as you blink. "As soon as she said 'Shabbleman' I knew <i>exactly</i> what was going on."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
He suffers to explain it to you: The <i>Stellae</i> first got wind of the <i>Libra Personae</i> when it was still in upstate New York, and was on its way to the relatives of a recently deceased woman. Rosalie's mention of the Shabblemans--those relatives--instantly raised his suspicions, and as with you, the name "Will Shabbleman" had clinched them. This information was already known to you--Rick had filled you in while in LA about the <i>Libra's</i> recent migrations--but Joe was able to mirror your own deductions with even less information.<br/>
<br/>
"So what are you going to do?" you ask. "If this is a trap--"<br/>
<br/>
"No 'ifs' about it. I'll be on my guard. But we definitely need to investigate her further."<br/>
<br/>
You let him start drawing all of his notes and charts together, and watch with mounting concern. He is a lot calmer than you've ever seen him. You don't like it, and follow him back to the bedroom, where he tucks the papers into your bag.<br/>
<br/>
"Joe," you say, "I know you like Rosalie--"<br/>
<br/>
"I like everybody. Even Blackwell had his points."<br/>
<br/>
"I mean, I know you <i>like</i> her."<br/>
<br/>
He gives you a look. "How long did you say you had my <i>imago</i> on for?"<br/>
<br/>
"Long enough to tell," you retort. "I carried her back to your bed."<br/>
<br/>
He smiles tightly. "Oh sure, I like her," he says as you walk back into the living room. "I like all the pretty girls. It's just a viral thing, though, as you'd have known if you'd stuck it out a little longer as me."<br/>
<br/>
You're about to retort when your own phone rings. <i>Rick.</i> You don't answer until you're back in Frank's bedroom. "Kid tell you you're on your way back?" Rick asks.<br/>
<br/>
"Yes, and I'm not happy about it."<br/>
<br/>
"Because you didn't finish your assignment for me?"<br/>
<br/>
"I blew it off, Rick, and I'll tell you all about that when I see you. But it's a bad idea letting Joe go up there by himself."<br/>
<br/>
"Kid knows what he's getting into. You don't. And what do you mean you blew it off?"<br/>
<br/>
"I said I'd tell you later! What did <i>Joe</i> tell you about <i>her?</i>"<br/>
<br/>
"Don't take this tone with me, Prescott."<br/>
<br/>
You choke at the use of your name instead of the usual "squirt." "Rick, he's in <i>love</i> with her. I <i>know</i> it."<br/>
<br/>
"I thought you said you blew off your assignment."<br/>
<br/>
"After I got his <i>imago.</i> That's not important right now--"<br/>
<br/>
"You want to know what's important, Prescott?" Again, you shiver at the use of your name. "What's important is that you get your ass back home. Tonight. Get to the airport. <i>Now.</i>"<br/>
<br/>
Your shoulders slump, and you pick up your bag. "I'm walking out now," you mutter. "As a courtesy, would you tell me why it's so important that you're yelling at me this way?"<br/>
<br/>
"Sure. This girl knows what you can do, and she specifically asked Joe to bring you along. We're not going to risk a repeat of Cambridge."</span></div></div>


path: 112211111112221122111122212121121121211221212112121112122112122111121212221112211111212121
author_id: seuzz
title: A Mission in the Mountains
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>"We're not going to risk a repeat of Cambridge," Rick says.<br/>
<br/>
Your hand slides off the handle of the door. "What makes you think--?"<br/>
<br/>
"You got roots in Cuthbert, Prescott. So does the <i>Libra.</i> We know about all about conjunctions, that's our business, and this ain't a conjunction I wanna see, 'specially when someone's working hard to set it up."<br/>
<br/>
"So, you know I'm related to the Shabblemans." you say. You shouldn't be surprised that he knows; Rick is nothing if not thorough.<br/>
<br/>
"Sure, but don't flatter yourself that I hold it against you."<br/>
<br/>
<i>But Rick doesn't know all the facts about Rosalie.</i> Joe made that clear in his last words to you.<br/>
<br/>
Your phone is still to your ear as you open the front door. "I'm off!" you call to Joe.<br/>
<br/>
"Good! It was great seeing you, and I'll see you later."<br/>
<br/>
You slam the door, not so hard that he'll think you're pissed, but hard enough to let him know you're not happy. "Okay, I'm outside, Rick, and I'll call a cab as soon as I hang up. But would you listen to me first?"<br/>
<br/>
"'Course I will, squirt. What's got you so bothered?"<br/>
<br/>
"Joe told you about this Rosalie girl and Cuthbert, but did he tell you that Rosalie is a <i>Stellae?</i>"<br/>
<br/>
There's a very long pause, which is pretty much the only answer you need. "No. What's the story?"<br/>
<br/>
"That's how this trip to Cuthbert got started," you say. "Joe figured out she's a <i>Stellae</i> just before I got here, and we sat down to talk some more with her about it, so he could write up a full report for you. Turns out she's a Sulva, like me, which is how come Joe had a hard time spotting her, and she's also Glundandra, which has Joe kind of--"<br/>
<br/>
"Are you still in front of the kid's house? Take a walk, so he doesn't think you're loitering. Now tell me everything."<br/>
<br/>
You give it to him, as completely as you can, though you gloss over how long Joe has known, and give the impression that you found out because he'd volunteered it all to you. You describe the interview with Rosalie, and how you and Joe, independently, became suspicious at the mention of Cuthbert. "Thing is," you insist, "Rosalie seems really sweet. I can't believe she's leading Joe into a trap--"<br/>
<br/>
"How sweet are some of <i>your</i> faces, squirt? And how guilty do you have to be when there's black magic involved? What were <i>you</i> doing when you met the kid?"<br/>
<br/>
<i>Point taken, and it hurts to remember how many times you came close to double-crossing Joe and Frank.</i> And despite all you've been through, with Joe and Frank and Rick and Kali and Miko, and in England, you are still a newbie, only weeks into your new life. "That doesn't mean <i>she's</i> bad," you say stubbornly.<br/>
<br/>
"Of course not, and I didn't say it did. Point is, there's more going on here than a sweet kid with some screwy stars. I've been to Cuthbert, drove through it a few months ago while following up on the New York end of the <i>Libra</i> business. I don't mean to insult your distant relations, squirt, but I didn't feel like lingering. And when I remember Cuthbert, and think of Cambridge--"<br/>
<br/>
"Okay, Rick, I get it," you sigh. <br/>
<br/>
"I'm serious about Cambridge, squirt," he insists. "Cuthbert ain't Cambridge. It would be a lot less fun for you."<br/>
<br/>
"I <i>get</i> it, Rick."<br/>
<br/>
"Do you really?" His voice becomes very strong. "You wanna know what Cuthbert would be like for you, think of Cambridge, and picture it about thirteen times worse."<br/>
<br/>
Your heart chills. <i>Is that really possible.</i> "You don't have to keep hammering at it, Rick."<br/>
<br/>
"So what are you going to do?"<br/>
<br/>
"Well, I'm practically downtown now. I'll just catch the shuttle van to the airport."<br/>
<br/>
"Uh uh. <i>This</i> is what you're going to do."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
As Rick directs, you head over to a cheap clothing store and pick up a few items so you can clothe the extra bodies you are still carrying. You grab a bite to eat, and take it in a very leisurely way. He calls back around seven, telling you that the motel room for the night and the rental car for the morning are all ready; he already had a credit card for "Nick Martin" made up, and it will be express delivered in the morning to that motel to cover any upcoming expenses. <br/>
<br/>
"It <i>is</i> too dangerous for you, squirt," he says when you, shocked, ask why he's sending you in to Cuthbert. "But based on what you told me, it sounds too dangerous for the kid as well. At least for a solo mission. I'd put it all down to backwoods moonshine--dangerous to you but not the rest of us--except for what you told me about this girl being <i>Stellae.</i> Suggests to me there's more to it than what me and the kid figured when we talked."<br/>
<br/>
"You told me not to jump into the pool and help people," you say slowly.<br/>
<br/>
"That's right, and I'm glad you remember and are sounding like you really don't want to do this. It'll keep you careful. But you're not to do anything except observe. Don't let the kid know you're there. And no fighting, no cliffhanging rescues, no high-speed, hillbilly, mountain-jalopy chases set to <i>Deliverance</i> banjoes."<br/>
<br/>
"No <i>what?</i>"<br/>
<br/>
"You know what I'm talking about. The kid's handling the investigation--he knows what to look for--and you're just there to watch and make sure he gets in and out. I don't want any heroics from you. You're our forward recon unit. You watch, you listen, and if it looks like the kid is in serious trouble, or if something really bad is about to start, call me. Miko and I will be nearby, no later than tomorrow night. Well, a dozen miles off, which is about as close to Cuthbert as you can get without setting off their alarms."<br/>
<br/>
"I'll have to infiltrate and replace someone," you say.<br/>
<br/>
"Naturally. Try not to vomit all over yourself when you do. Oh, one more thing. The kid's pretending to be you."<br/>
<br/>
"What?"<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah. He's gonna tell the girl that he's the shapeshifter, and that he's put on Joe's form so it'll be more comfortable for her. He's told her that Joe is flying back to LA.  He didn't tell <i>me</i> this, but I assume he told her it was to report to us on her <i>Stellae</i> status."<br/>
<br/>
"I was supposed to do that when I saw you guys."<br/>
<br/>
"Right. I'm glad you kicked hard enough to tell me before. Keep doing that. But remember Cambridge, squirt. I ain't shittin' you when I tell you that Cuthbert's going to be bad. You'll be gambling with more than your life." The line goes dead.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You wake early the next day, and there's a small package waiting for you at the front desk--that credit card. You get a little breakfast, and then get in the rental car for the five-hour drive to Cuthbert. <br/>
<br/>
You'll get there by early afternoon. Joe and Rosalie will have already been there twelve hours. You try not to think of how much trouble Joe might already be in.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Cuthbert.</i> You've no real memories of it, for you'd tried blocking out all your experiences up there. Mostly you have the impression of a haze of heat and humidity hanging in the low, rolling mountains; of vegetation that's sickly green and wormy brown; of evil-sounding insects sawing and singing in the underbrush; of a copper-colored sun burning in the sky like a molten penny.<br/>
<br/>
You don't remember the people well, for you'd tried not to look at them. There were a few "cousins" your age, with skinny arms and ribs showing underneath their patched and faded overalls: evil-minded, nasty little brutes who'd snickered at you to your face, and showed you the frogs and snakes and reptiles they'd caught and liked to carry in their pockets. Most of them had shaved heads, not for style, obviously, but for hygiene. There was one kid, though, with a little bush of hair sprouting from the very top of his bullet-shaped head. You were polite enough to not openly compare it to the ash column rising from a volcanic peak.<br/>
<br/>
Robert--who was only eight at the time--had spent the whole trip howling with fear and horror; you were glad, though the noise made you nervous and bad-tempered, for it gave your parents an excuse to cut the "family reunion" short. Looking back, you realize that your father was as freaked out as you had been.<br/>
<br/>
No, you've no real memories, but the hazy hills rise like something out of a lucid, recurring nightmare when they appear before you, and the winding, ascending road coils like a serpent along treacherous switchbacks. The trees are now bare, except for the evergreens sprinkled among them. Dark clouds, threatening snow, blot out the sun, and outcroppings of bare rock gleam like stained teeth.<br/>
<br/>
There are no city limits, but you know you've arrived when you round a corner to find a shabby little building with a gas pump out front. The big sign on the side of the weathered building is badly faded, but you can still make out the word "CUTHBERT."<br/>
<br/>
You pull up to the pump. The concept of "self service" has apparently not reached the mountains, for a man in dirty overalls shambles out. He looks skeletal, and one shoulder is higher than the other, and his dark hair is matted. Weird bumps, like button mushrooms, disfigure his nose and cheeks. There's a lump along his jaw, and you hope for his sake it's a wad of tobacco.<br/>
<br/>
"Fill 'er up and getcha on yer way?" he asks when he reaches your window. He squints suspiciously at you, and you nod.<br/>
<br/>
Well, here it is; your first possible disguise. If your memories are accurate, they're not going to get any better in town. But this fella's probably stuck on the outskirts, and it might look weird if he went wandering into the town proper.</span></div></div>


path: 1122111111122211221111222121211211212112212121121211121221121221111212122211122111112121211
author_id: seuzz
title: The Watcher on the Road
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>"Fill 'er up?" the attendant asks.<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, please. Damn GPS is out and I don't know where I am. Glad I found you."<br/>
<br/>
He doesn't answer, and just shuffles over to the pump and clicks it on. It isn't even digital, and the metallic numbers clank as the gas comes out. The attendant squints off in the distance, ignoring your implied request for directions. "So, it says 'Cuthbert' on the side of your station. Is that--?"<br/>
<br/>
"Yew wanna get unlost, yew kin aw-ways turn aroun' an' come back a' way ya came," he says without looking at you.<br/>
<br/>
"If worst comes to worst," you agree. "Do you have a washroom?"<br/>
<br/>
The lump in his cheek shifts. "Gotta hole out back, if yain't partic'ler."<br/>
<br/>
"I ain't," you say, and get out of the car. You shuffle around the corner of the station, and from the corner of your eye catch him staring at you.<br/>
<br/>
The "hole" is just that, and there's a rough wooden bench with a hole cut in it nearby. In the summer it's probably crawling with flies and beetles. But now it just stinks faintly in the cold, cold air. You unzip yourself, but nothing comes out. You look around. The woods come up close, but a few dozen yards away there's a gray shack. It looks abandoned. <br/>
<br/>
When you've lingered long enough, you go back around the other side of the building, looking for signs of additional life. There is none, and the attendant himself is inside, where you find him behind a counter. There's no register, just a cigar box. "What do I owe you," you ask.<br/>
<br/>
"Twenty-five thirty-seven, lessen' you want yer oil checked."<br/>
<br/>
You demur, and because there's no set up for plastic, take out some bills. You press them into his hand, and touch the back of his hand with your finger tips. The tiny sigil burns there. He shudders, and you catch him as he falls.<br/>
<br/>
You lay him out behind the counter and glance out the window: no one. There's two more doors, one leading into a room in the back and another into an attached service bay. The back office is empty, and so is the bay, so you quickly get to work on your victim. <br/>
<br/>
You start by knocking him out for seventy-two hours, which you hope will be more than enough time. You then copy his physical form and his mind, but you keep them separate, so that you can inhabit the latter and look around before finishing the exchange.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Jasper Johnson. "Jape."</i> That's his shack in the back, where he lives alone. He owns the gas station, but his real job is watching for interlopers, to warn them off, and to report them if they look like they want to linger or snoop. He and his "friends" have a sideline in car chopping. It's not lucrative, for there's call for it only when a visitor has to be made to disappear. He had some fingers taken off him when he once hijacked an auto he'd taken a fancy to.<br/>
<br/>
You quickly strip him of his overalls, dirty sweater and dirtier long underwear, woolen socks and work boots, and with nearly infinite loathing pull them onto your own frame. <i>Get used to it, squirt,</i> you can practically hear Rick telling you. <i>It's not all going to be bedroom work with supermodel faces and athletes' bodies.</i> Then you pull on the rest of his <i>imago.</i><br/>
<br/>
Your bones bend and twist, and something down in your lower hip screams when you try to take a step. <i>Dammit, haven't they ever heard of "lifts" up here?</i> One of your legs is shorter than the other. You pat down your hair, and feel your eyes twist up in a natural-feeling squint. Through the dirty front windows you study the rental car. <i>Better git rid o' it a'fore summon sees it.</i> From a front pocket you take out some chaw and slip it inside your cheek.<br/>
<br/>
You open up the bay doors and hobble out, to back the car over one of the lifts. You bundle the real Jape into the back seat. You don't raise the lift, though, but lower it into the floor, into the secret room where Jape hides the chop work, and with a punch to another button slide a metal cover over it. There's a chance Sam'll notice; maybe you can tell him you're undressing a deer down there if he stops by and asks. You close the bay door, and limp back into the station proper, where you perch on the stool to do some thinking. <br/>
<br/>
<i>The Big House, that's where Joe and Rosalie will be.</i> "The Big House," the big, two-story house with the wrap-around veranda, looming on the edge of town, is the nerve-center of the Shabbleman empire. That's where "Grandmother"--the ancient, bloated, witch-whale--lives, lurching from room to room on her two canes. She lives there alone, though she has people in and out all the time, mostly the mousy little girls who do all her cleaning and cooking and errand-running, what there is of it; from what "Jape" himself has seen and heard, mostly she just likes to terrorize them.<br/>
<br/>
"Grandmother" is the one who really runs the town, though Gerrold Gibson is officially the mayor, and Carl Martin owns the bank and dry goods store. Neither has Shabbleman blood, but they do as they're told, just like Jape does. Most of the Shabblemans themselves live on the outskirts of town, in rusted-out trailers if they're relatively well-off, or in shanties and lean-tos if they're not. Nate Shabbleman, the town constable, lives over the jail.<br/>
<br/>
The prince of the realm, though, is Will Shabbleman. You squirt a long, brown stream into the nearby plastic bucket, and squint hard. <i>Funny that he headed out of town,</i> Jape thought two months ago. <i>Funny that he came back a week ago,</i> you think. That'll be an interesting surprise for Joe.<br/>
<br/>
For Rosalie too. <i>Maybe.</i><br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You're lost in these thoughts, carefully reviewing the intricate relations between the various families, when the bell on the back wall rings. <i>'Nother car comin' up the highway,</i> you think. <i>Busy day.</i><br/>
<br/>
It's a pick-up truck with a camper shell on the back, and it pulls into the station. You limp out. "Fill 'er up and getcha on yer way?" you ask with undisguised surliness.<br/>
<br/>
There are two men in front. The driver has a huge scruffy beard and a seed cap pulled low over bushy eyebrows. His friend is clean cut, with a lean, tanned face, and he stares straight-ahead from behind sunglasses. "This Cuthbert?" the driver asks, and you shift the chaw from one cheek to the next. "Heard you got a real good fish-fry shack up here."<br/>
<br/>
"Up a' road, take Fifth into town," you say. "Left on Main. Big ol' fish, ya can't miss it."<br/>
<br/>
"Much obliged," the driver says, and you step back as he pulls back onto the road.<br/>
<br/>
You limp back inside and lift the ancient phone receiver. "Molly, this's Jape, gimme Zach." You squirt into the bucket. "Two fellers in a camper onna way in," you tell the owner of Zach's Fish Shack when he picks up. "Knew what t'say, but I ain't never seen 'em a'fore. Uh huh," you grunt when he says he'll take care of it, and hang up.<br/>
<br/>
Zeke handles sales of the town's "cash crop," and it's none of Jape's business, except to listen for the password and send the purchasers in when they ask for the famous "fish fry." Those you just sent in, they better be legit, for their own sake, but also yours.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Forty minutes later, another truck pulls in, this one from the direction of town, and your heart beats. Sam Gibson--that's one of the mayor's many second cousins--gets out. In the front seat you can see Sally, the idiot twelve-year-old girl that everyone takes turns babysitting; even at a distance, you can see the thick tongue protruding from her mouth.<br/>
<br/>
"Ain't you cold, Jape," Sam laughs as he comes in.<br/>
<br/>
"Ain't you hot," you retort. Sam is enormously fat, and he's swaddled in a tremendous parka. "Yew here about them--?" He nods. "Figgered. One in the shades had 'Barney' all over him."<br/>
<br/>
"That he did. Got some good meat on 'im." Sam cackles. "Don't go eatin' any o' the barbeque at Zach's for a spell." He laughs again and rubs his hands. "You ready to make some money?"<br/>
<br/>
You glance into the bay. <i>Shit,</i> you think. "Shore," you say aloud. "Lessen' you wanna keep it fer yerself."<br/>
<br/>
He gives you a long, surprised look. "You turnin' down money in hand?"<br/>
<br/>
"Been a busy day." You give him a cunning look and rub your jaw while thinking fast. "Had another fella 'long earlier. Sen'im back down, but I gotta feelin' he'll be back. I liked <i>his</i> wheels a lot." You bend a finger at Sam. "Make y'offer. Yew kin keep 'at camper fer y'self, but yew lemme have 'at 'tother set, if'n he comes back through 'n--" You squirt meaningfully into the bucket.<br/>
<br/>
"What if he doesn't?" Sam asks shrewdly.<br/>
<br/>
"Then yew gotcher self a camper an' I gotta hole out back."<br/>
<br/>
"It was that nice?" he asks. You nod. "I still gotta chop the camper up. Can't have it--"<br/>
<br/>
"Three days," you say, and hook the air with claw-like fingers. "Driver 'roun' fer three days. If 'at 'tother feller comes back, I'ma gonna wanna do some quick customizin'. I won't want all the shit he's carryin' in it." You leer.<br/>
<br/>
Sam stares at you, torn between twin cupidities. He glances over at the bay. "You don't already got it here, do you, Jape?"<br/>
<br/>
"If I did, you'da heared. I learnt <i>that</i> lesson." You ostentatiously rest your left hand--the one with three missing fingers--on the countertop.<br/>
<br/>
"Then you gotta deal," he says. "I'll head back--"<br/>
<br/>
But you're thinking of doing another swap. Sam can go anywhere in town, but he's often busy. The girl, though, can flit anywhere, and is already practically invisible.</span></div></div>


