This choice: Leave the anima bands on Frank and Joe • Go Back...Chapter #32The New Black Magic by: Seuzz   You turn to Melody with a puzzled expression. "Why, what are you asking?"
"I guess I'm asking what we're going to do about them."
"We're not going to do anything. They're me."
"They don't seem like they're treating you real nice."
"They're advanced. Like, really advanced at this stuff. But that's good. I want to learn from them."
"Well, it's your funeral, boss," she says, and turns away.
"It's my essentia, not theirs, inside you, Melody, so you don't have to do what they say. But treat them with respect, okay?" you call after her.
"Is that an order?"
"Yes."
"Will do. I'll see you later."
* * * * *
You sit in the living room a little longer, reviewing Frank's memories and proclivities more deeply, trying to get a sense of him. It would help you to predict what the real guy is going to do. That's because there's not much difference between your situation and his. Frank, wearing your anima band; you wearing his mind-band: you're both acting like Will Prescott sitting inside Frank Durras's mind.
He's got a suspicious, truculent streak. He's quick to doubt people and their motives, but he tries to be fair. You feel his influence, to the extent that you can't help feeling somewhat paranoid about the anima-controlled brothers. They have a lot of talents, far more than you. For all the advances that you felt so pleased to have made over the past few weeks, you are a soft, green novice in their company. But Frank also has a stubborn sense of loyalty; and between that loyalty and the anima's own identification with you, you think you can trust him. You also think he can keep Joe in line.
Out in the main house, you discover that your own double has left, and that Frank and Joe left Blackwell disencumbered of the mask. You don't replace it, and lock up for the night. Upstairs, in his bedroom, you stare out the window for a long time at the black sky. The moon hangs there, shining palely. That's one of my ousiarchs, you reflect. Somewhere else in the sky--or beneath your feet--is Pluto, your other ousiarch. It's very odd to think of yourself attached by invisible chords to those impossibly distant objects. But that's where the magic of it all is.
* * * * *
Frank and Joe show up early the next morning, hollering at you from downstairs. "We brought donuts and coffee," Joe cries joyfully. "Best way to start the weekend is with dessert!" he adds as you come thundering downstairs to meet them.
"Stuff's fuckin' bad for you, Joe," Frank says.
"I can burn it off. You know my metabolism." Joe drums his tummy. "So, me and Frank spent most of last night talking about what we were going to do," he continues as he leads your company into the dining room. "Wrestled with the problems, wrestled with each other." He rips open the donut box, and sends donuts flying all over Blackwell's table. "You don't mind us planning things out, do you?"
"You're the experts," you say, a little uneasily.
"That's right, but we don't want you feeling like we're railroading you. It's all for your own good. We're the Three Musketeers and all that, but we wanna get you up to our level as fast as we can, for our sake as well as your own."
"You're going to have to do some hard work," Frank observes. He sips some coffee--black--while Joe smashes a jelly donut into his mouth.
"F'shur, f'shur," Joe mumbles through the mess. "But we figured out a set up that'll make it fun for you too. Guaranteed. You're gonna be me," Joe grins, showing lots of teeth covered in raspberry jelly.
"You have to do two things, Prescott," Frank says as you look between them with a slightly dumbfounded feeling. "You have to learn what we know, and you have to internalize it. You'll spend roughly eight hours a day being Joe, wearing his mask and going to school as him. This will give you direct access to the stuff he knows, which is closer to what you need to know than what I know."
"Where will Joe be?"
"Somewhere else," Joe says carelessly. "I know exactly where, we need it for our long-range plans, but the name won't mean anything to you right away. But we'll get together after school every day. You'll take my mask off, and work at it all again, so that the stuff you picked up while in my mask doesn't disappear on you. I won't lie, it's gonna be intense for you, but it'll work out great. You'll pick up a fucking lot, fucking fast. And you'll have fun as me at school."
"This is at the college, right?"
They both stare at you, and Joe busts out laughing. "Nah, that was a blind to get Melody. You were wearing Frank's mind band last night, you know where we are."
"I did. But, most of it's faded."
"Right," Frank says. "And that's how come we'll be working you outside of Joe's mask. So the new stuff doesn't fade. But we're enrolled at Eastman."
"Not that we need the education," Joe says. "Well, I don't, because I know it all already. And Frank stopped learning shit back in third grade." That earns him a look from his brother.
"Where will you be, Frank?" you ask.
"Being myself, mostly. I might move from place to place, depending on what we need."
"Are you talking about making more golems?" you ask.
"At least two more," Joe says. "One for my new hiding place, and one for-- Well, you'll see. Beyond that, we'll have to play it as it lays."
"They'll be our slaves, though," Frank says. "You're stretched almost to the breaking point." He ticks the names off on his fingers. "Yourself, Blackwell, Yumi, Melody."
"And we should get started," Joe says, brushing away crumbs and getting up. "Frank'll start making up the masks we need. Let's you and me sort through Blackwell's library for books."
* * * * *
It's the work of several hours, for you and Joe debate what your study courses should be. He wants you to concentrate on developing your "Kenandandra" techniques by concentrating on sigils and sigilistic logic; you are still interested in the theory underlying the four metaphysical elements. He mostly bullies you out of it, though: "Dude, you were only chasing that because you wanted to know what Blackwell saw in you, and now you know. Leave the theory to me." But he does relent enough to let you pick out some books on imago, so you can continue working on the hex for your own golem.
And he insists, in fact, on your taking books on hexes and curses and lots of other nasty whatnots. "It's not that I'm that big on these things, you understand," he says. "But they could be useful as stuff to take part, study, practice on. And dude, you could, like, so totally weaponize this shit it wouldn't be funny."
By eleven, though, you've got the books sorted out, and Joe runs them back to the house that he and Frank (and now you) are sharing near the college. Frank stays with you, to help finish up on the masks. He hands you a half-done mind band. "What are we going to do about your colleagues? The Stellae?"
"Try to stay out of their way," he grunts. "Lucky we don't have a time limit on this job. We told Dad--Charles Brennan, the old man who runs it--about Blackwell, but we'll tell him it turned out to be a blind. We've got something we can use to back it up. Joe didn't tell you what we found at Eastman?" You shake your head. "We found a box of stuff hidden in the basement. Masks and shit. A notebook. Nothing to directly tie it to the Libra, but we'll make a up a bullshit excuse saying that we think we've got a lead at Eastman, and that we'll keep looking." He pushes a crick out of his neck. "We might have to sacrifice Blackwell, though. Make it look like he got it back, then lost it in an accident."
"What about taking over more of these Stellae types? Using more anima bands on them?"
"I'd like to avoid that," he says. "The others are dangerous, a lot more dangerous than me and Joe. They keep in touch with each other pretty closely, and we don't want anyone noticing anything funny going on with them." He sighs. "I'm worried that Dad--the old man--will notice something funny going on with Joe and me. He sits at the center of a web, and he might feel a tremble from us, even at a distance. The Stellae can be pretty spooky that way."
"You guys said something about a 'long-range plan'."
"Long-range plan is to disappear using the Libra. Hide out with it. Set up our own little operation. That's what you were going to do, wasn't it?"
"I hadn't really thought about it. You know that. I was just doing research."
"Well, that kind of research tends to attract the Stellae. And if they get us back, Prescott," he says, "it's not going to be a pretty scene." He raises his head to fix you with a hard look. "Me and Joe don't want these bands taken off us, and you don't want to know what we'll do to you if they do come off. Remember that."
If you weren't planning on leading the life of a black magician, it sounds like you are stuck with it anyway. You have the following choice: 1. Continue |
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