by Richard Hein
We wandered the moderately crowded levels of Pike Place Market. My usual sense of wonderment I felt every time I went there had banked down to sullen coals, dampened by the worry gnawing at my shoulders. I’d always loved the place, even after I’d discovered two possessed World War II Germans had set up a shop.
Not bringing Kate would have been a good idea. Hindsight is a bitch.
“What’s doing magic like?”
I stirred from my cloud of dark thoughts. “What?”
Kate wiggled fingers in the air. “Magic. You’ve broken the barriers between realities a handful of times now. I’m not likely to get a good answer from anyone else. So, what’s it like to tear reality apart and reshape it to your will?”
“Well,” I said, raking fingers through my hair, “it’s… I don’t know.”
I took a breath. “Amazing? Frightening? Humbling? There’s like an infinity squared of universes out there, right? And I kinda think ‘I want to melt that asshole with a sun,’ and do it. I can’t even come close to explaining how intense that feels, that I can just reach out to another universe and edit it into ours.”
Our footsteps echoed as we passed the old magic shop. “So, it’s kind of…”
“Like I can do anything,” I continued, bowling over her words. They spilled out, excited. Fearful. “I don’t want to, of course, because I spent a decade being told about the dangers of magic, and Daniel’s right and sweet merciful crap don’t tell him I said that, but it’s hard not to let the mind wander at the possibilities. You once joked about pulling a diamond statue of yourself from another universe to ours, and we’re sitting here broke as all Hell and I can’t help but think, ‘yeah, okay, why not just pull a pirate chest full of gold from a pirate dimension through,’ and presto, bam, no more money problems. I mean, I’m immune to the effects of magic, right? Why not?”
“Pirate dimension?”
I shrugged. “Okay, there’s no such thing. My point remains.”
Kate paused just outside a little hole in the wall shop, the door a faded kind of pea green. Above the door hung a sign on an iron post, a pyramid with the all-seeing eye stamped into it.
She turned and looked at me. “So why don’t you?”
I waved an annoyed hand. “It’s bad. Immune or not, I shouldn’t be dipping into cosmic forces willy-nilly. There’s always a cost. Always. Someday I’ll…” I thought of the lie I’d given, that it was Sanctuary protecting me from magic. “Someday maybe I’ll be able to pass the Big Boy Pants of leadership to someone else and be free of all this. I don’t want to give up an addiction to magic. There’s no support groups for that, you know.”
I shouldered open the door and filed into the cramped shop. Shelves lined the walls on both sides of me, cluttered with crystals and skulls and impressive-looking crap that had zero magical ability. It sold like movie remakes to the mindless masses, though, and more than kept the Twins in business while they tackled other legitimate supernatural business. I had to give them grudging credit — if I could make a living selling snake oil to idiots I’d have set up a shop as well and done the backstroke in my Money Bin.
“Ooh,” Kate said, pushing in behind me and nudging the door shut with one foot. “What about reaching out to an alternate reality where you exist, but you’re not an asshole and bringing him over?”
I grinned and flourished a hand toward Stefan behind the counter as if I were presenting it with a reward.
The tall blond man leaned forward onto the counter, face wistful. “Unfortunately, my dear, that’s just not possible. The word ‘infinite’ isn’t as grandiose as it sounds. A googolplex of other universes and yet this is the only one with humanity.” The possessed man dropped his head into his raised palms and gave Kate an exaggerated sigh. “Something about you humans being the only ones with souls. It makes you oh so special.”
“Hence no pirate dimension,” I added.
Kate squeezed past me in the tight confines of the shop. I sucked in a pained breath as she elbowed my gut and slid through, her everything gliding against my everything and kindling the chorus of pain once more.
Her hair smelled of lavender, though. Relaxing.
“Seriously?” I grumbled. “A little politeness goes a long way.”
“Oh, is it ‘ironic day’?” Stefan asked, straightening.
“Hyuck hyuck,” I said, crossing my arms and leaning against a shelf full of ceremonial bone bowls. Kate hopped up onto the counter next to Stefan, knocking her heels against the weathered wood like a bored child.
“If you had word on the case, you could have just called,” Stefan said. A sudden grin blossomed. “Listen to me. ‘Case.’ It sounds so deliciously noir, doesn’t it?”
“A lead,” Kate said. “An address to check out. We’re heading there next but need a favor first.”
“Dieter around?” I cut Kate off before her reasoning came out. “We’ve got a few things to run past you, and I’d like to not have to repeat myself.”
“Dieter is at home. Let me call him.”
Stefan’s eyelids fell half closed. I felt a hum in the air, as if someone had wrapped a string around my neck, stretched it taut, and given it a good pluck. I shivered at the sensation of magic being used.
That confirmed one theory though. They could talk to each other without words.
“So, that’s a neat trick,” I said. “You can talk to him across dimensional borders?”
The lithe figure shrugged, somehow making the gesture look elegant in the suit it wore. “Not words, per se. Emotion, intent, a vague idea.”
I chewed a cheek. Huh. Was that another benefit to this whole possessing thing I was missing? Could I call collect back to Sanctuary if I needed to? Having Sanctuary manifest and drop a message with Kate or Daniel could be handy.
Maybe it was one of those core benefits I seemed to lack, like being immune to car accidents.
“Order a pizza with it,” I said. “Then we’ll talk.”
The door at the far end of the shop, just past the register, opened. For a moment I caught sight of a beautiful alien landscape, and then Dieter stepped through and let the portal close behind him. He blinked at the presence of Kate and me, straightened his tie, and gave a little bow.
“Dee,” I said, straightening. My heart lurched into a panicked staccato as I forced my legs to move me toward him. “I… uh… need a favor.”
“Samuel, you haven’t repaid the last three favors owed,” the thing wearing a man-suit said with a shake of its head. “Ignoring that you’re doing work for us as is.”
Crap. There was still time. Just run for the door, make an excuse and… I don’t know. Shit. This demon would root around in my noggin, find Lauren, and all hell would break loose once Kate found out.
Can you hide or something? I thought at Lauren.
Yeah. I’ve put a lampshade on my head and am holding still, Lauren said.
I tried to throttle the thing in my brain. Be fucking serious for a moment! You getting found is bad.
It’s your mind, Twinkles. It’s not like there’s a lot of clutter in here for me to hide in.
Shit.
Kate slipped from the counter and grabbed its hand. Wordlessly she dragged Dieter over, grabbed my hand and entwined our fingers. We stood there for a second, looking awkward as we both held hands and refused to look anywhere at the other. I focused on Kate to give her a roll of my eyes.
“Dig into his brain,” she said, stepping back and folding her arms. She never took her gaze from my eyes. “Like you did to me.”
Dieter’s eyes widened. It blinked a few times, turning to peer at me as if seeing me for the first time.
“Are you sure about this?” Dieter said. I noted the hand stayed entwined with mine.
“He gets no say in this,” Kate said in a firm voice. “Call it a precaution, call it verification, call it payback for making me go through the same. Just give him a read.”
Dieter lifted another hand to grab my other. I fidgeted f
rom foot to foot as Dieter’s eyes drifted closed. How did Dieter do it, anyway? I wasn’t sure if what I’d felt at Lockyer’s had been an Entity or not. If so, I seemed to sense the things farther away than Dieter. Unless he’s just thrilled to hold people’s hands, I thought. Cautiously I pushed out with my senses, trying to feel the room with my mind. Again I caught a whiff of something pungent, almost like over-microwaved popcorn. This close, I could feel it coating Dieter, like it bathed in the fragrance and it had pooled on its skin. Stefan was similar, though the feeling was far fainter.
I cast my thoughts toward Kate, breath catching. Would I be able to feel the little tendrils that Michael had sewn into her? She stared at me, a mixture of anticipation and outright worry on her face. I tried to smile in what I hoped was a reassuring manner. Nothing. I could feel nothing on her. I had no way of feeling Michael’s hold over her.
My mind drifted back to the closeness of the Entity in front of me. I felt trapped, an animal caught by great iron jaws. I contemplated gnawing off my own wrists to get free and sprint out of there. No, that wouldn’t work. Bloody stumps wouldn’t be able to work the door.
What would I do when Dieter announced Lauren’s presence? My eyes met Kate’s, wondering what I was capable of when trapped. The continued worry on her face brought me up short. This wasn’t the concern of someone contemplating the various ways of bashing in my skull to end my possession. Kate was warm and friendly. I wondered if she’d taken the lessons I’d taught to heart. Would she put a bullet in me if it came to it? Friendly to me, but what lay beneath that exterior?
The worry on her face told a tale. It was a much more human thing. She was worried about me, not about what to do with me. I shifted under that gaze, sweaty alien hands still grasping at mine. I wasn’t used to that level of caring out of another person toward me. Not in a few years at least, not since Lauren. I didn’t think it went beyond friendship, but that was the crux of it.
Kate cared.
Silently I swore. God, I was an asshole for putting her and Daniel through this. She deserved to know the truth. My heart pounded like the beat of a frantic, drunken rave. I should tell her about Lauren from my own lips before Dieter could get the drop on that shit-nugget of information. Maybe the Twins could help me, though they had a strong allergic reaction to anyone even mentioning exorcism. I didn't know how I would get through it, but Kate needed…
“I’m getting a resonance here,” Dieter declared. My mouth dried up, tongue grafting to the roof of my mouth as sure as if I’d just deep-throated a jar of peanut butter. It dropped my hands and shook fingers out. “It doesn’t feel like a possession, but more like a symbiosis. Given what we know of the place, I’m going to assume Sanctuary.”
I blew out a breath and gave Kate a weak smile. Disaster averted.
“Why assume Sanctuary?” Kate asked, turning away from me. I wanted to throw up my hands and scream, “Just leave well enough alone!” but kept my calm.
“You can only get in by binding your essence with it,” Stefan said, holding up a finger. “The binding vanishes with death.” Another finger. “It’s a demi-reality pocket within this one, much like our own lovely home away from home.” A third. “Samuel mentioned he was Chancellor to us last time he stopped in.” Four.
“Grand Poobah,” Kate corrected and nodded. “Okay. Makes sense. So, he’s Samuel?”
Dieter smiled and put a hand on her shoulder. “Samuel is the same as you’ve always known him, dear.”
I stood there, staring. What? Had he missed Lauren? Had she found a place to hide? I watched Dieter for a second, looking for anything — mustache-twirling, eyes flashing red, even a thumb’s-up.
Nothing. The Entity wandered behind the counter and produced a cylinder of cleaning wipes, one of which was used to clean fingers recently in contact with mine.
Nothing was adding up with my apparent possession.
I clapped my hands, thunderous in the tiny shop. Stefan winced and wiggled a finger in one ear.
“Okay,” I said with mock cheer, “let’s shuffle out to greener pastures and talk shop.”
Stefan crossed its arms and leveled a glare at me. “Samuel,” it said in a pained voice, “we are serious. You can’t keep wandering in here and using us like your personal indentured servants. We’re respected individuals in the supernatural community and yet you keep coming in here, taking what you want, and giving us little. It’s a lopsided relationship.”
“Can we get to the real problem at hand?” I gave the knob a wiggle. Stefan gave another of his patented sighs and waved a hand at the door. I tugged it open. The pressure change popped my ears as I held the door open on a swirling alien landscape. The Twins shuffled past in silence. I stepped through and yanked the door closed behind me.
Kate and I paused. God, I would never get used to it. A night sky burned full of unfamiliar stars above us, broken by the enormous planet that rose above the horizon. It looked a lot like a purple version of Jupiter, all swirling layers and vibrant colors. Twinkling lights swirled around it in a series of rings, sweeping out over the bit of ground we were on. Framed by the planet like the weirdest Thomas Kinkade painting lay a little Bavarian-style house. I soaked it in.
Besides, if I was truly possessed I should be able to make a place like this, a little bubble of reality clinging to our own.
We wandered to the wide concrete patio abutting the house and eased into plastic reclining chairs all turned to face the majesty of the swirling planet looming above. Kate sat to my left, sliding her chair until a foot from mine.
“So, I met with the son of the former Chancellor of the OFC,” I said and then spilled the beans on everything I learned — Norman Lockyer; the souped-up exorcism I’d seen.
“Is that something you’ve seen before?” Kate asked.
Stefan sat on the concrete, legs crossed and back iron-straight, ignoring the dirt that was staining its suit. Maybe possession came with god-tier dry cleaning as well for all I knew. The Entity shared a long look with Dieter.
“What?” I said, sweeping a finger between the two of them. “That’s a look that says you know something. Spit it out, Encyclopedia Brown.”
“It’s possible,” Stefan said. “Crude, disgusting, and vile, but possible. Everything is energy, in a certain sense.”
“Right,” I agreed. “Einstein and the whole magic equation thing.”
Dieter snorted. “Spiritually, Samuel. Stefan and I are, for lack of a better term, thoughts made flesh.”
“Thoughts taken flesh,” I corrected, leveling that finger again. Dieter sawed a hand back and forth in the air. “Thoughts that have stolen flesh, maybe.”
“Everything that exists does so by force of will,” Stefan continued. “Humans have souls, yes, but that’s just a, ah, different flavor; a unique orientation of will and energy, but still just another form of it.”
“Dibs on being Rocky Road,” Kate said.
“We…” It paused and rolled its eyes. “We demons, as you’re fond of calling us are just big bundles of willpower. Magic is about the application of energy between these universes with one’s willpower as a conduit.”
“And exorcism is a contest of wills but rammed down a one-way street,” Kate said, nodding. “Okay, so you’re saying that the energy to cast something out is the same as the stuff you’re made of, or, when you get down to it, what we’re made of over on Earth.”
Stefan’s grin was radiant. “More or less. Subtle differences, given souls are unique, but yes. So one could, in theory, use an external source to fuel an exorcism, rather than their own will. In theory you could use your own soul fully to cast something out, a single massive whammy. Of course, you’d be dead at the end, but you could fuel an exorcism with another source.”
“Or magic,” Dieter added, lacing fingers behind its head and staring straight up at the twinkling stars. “This Lockyer fellow could use the energy from the Entity to breach between universes and use magic as he desires. Ritual sacrifice of huma
ns to power spells or summoning is much the same way. Bloodier and messier, but the same ends. All so very disgusting.”
I gave a low whistle. “It’s possible, then.” My thoughts raced. Obviously the sacrifice of people was out of the question, but the next time I happened onto an incursion, I needed to bleed it dry and push Lauren from my head. A giddy euphoria bubbled up within me. God, I couldn’t even imagine what that would be like at this point, but it was possible.
“Abhorrent, though,” Stefan said, the smile fading. “Is that energy consumed? What happens to those sacrificed? Are they sent home? Are they destroyed? We don’t know. It’s not like just because we came from outside your universe means we know all the little workings of how.” Stefan sighed. “There should be a brochure or a class or something for those of us that cross over. The point is that the one sacrificed might unravel instead of get banished home.”
“A whole lot of ‘who cares’, I’d wager,” I said with a shrug. “Two birds with one bowling-ball-sized stone.”
“We met him once, you know,” Stefan said. “Frederick Lockyer.”
Kate gave a low whistle.
I nodded. “What did you think?”
“He came to our old shop. Imposing, fierce, intelligent. Polite, but it was clear he thought we were far, far beneath him.”
“He’d become Chancellor and wanted to know why his predecessor hadn’t come after us,” said Dieter. “We explained that we’d had a working relationship with the OFC both before and after we joined with these bodies and had gotten a grudging pass.”
“Wow,” I said. “Did Christina ever pay you a call?”
“We met,” Stefan said woodenly. I grinned. The Boss had certainly had that effect on some.
“Frederick was a little unorthodox, though,” Dieter continued. “He didn’t seem at all concerned about keeping who we were and what we did a secret.”
I grunted. “Seems par for the course. His son said daddy dearest thought the world would be safer if everyone knew about the likes of you and the dangers of magic, instead of, you know, the panic and chaos that would ensue while everyone’s fragile beliefs shattered in the light of cold reality.”