Chapter 144: 144
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In the loud silence that was the museum, Orison walked over to where Smiley lay and worked his will over the mummified man until he could finally pull the impossibly living thing into his space to be churned into near nothingness again. There was no joy in such a grim victory. He had done it only to ensure an enemy wouldn't suddenly rise from the ashes later to haunt him again.
Looking around and seeing no one but an unconscious Nicolas that wasn't a mummy, much less known or a person he felt moved to give aid to, he picked up the teenager and left the museum. Upon exiting the front foyer into the dimming daylight of early evening, it was as if a vacuum of timelessness had ruptured allowing the flow of the world to return to the museum's innards. The sounds of sirens drew nearer by the moment as he noted his car in the mostly empty parking lot.
Inside the car, a sleeping Jacob slumped over the steering wheel. Once Orison laid Nicolas out in the back seat, he pushed Jacob over to slump into the front seat and propped the man's feet past the gear stick. If he had been in a better mood, he might have laughed at Jacob's somewhat painful looking fetal position as he got behind the wheel and drove off.
As much as he didn't want to return to the hotel, Orison needed to at least cursorily attempt to figure out what happened to Jen. After checking at the front desk, he found out that a gentleman had escorted her to pick up her and Wendy's things. Their key had already been turned in. With nothing in his room, he did the same. Once he had reassured the concierge that nothing was wrong, they just didn't need the room anymore, he was on his way to the new house.
Halfway there, Jacob woke up and after a bit of a confused start, righted himself on the passenger's side. "I had the strangest dream. Me, James and Jimmy were all young again but it wasn't the past. It- it was..."
Orison said nothing as Jacob cried a little.
The man said, "Sorry about that. Even though it was strange at parts it was nice. We weren't bad men, we were ornery kids that didn't know much about the dark and ugly world."
The young mage said, "It's not the world that's ugly, Jacob. It's the people shaped scum decorations that make it look that way. You don't have to be one of them anymore but that doesn't mean you weren't one for awhile. Atone, my leaky eyed friend. Even if you can't be that simple and clean soul again, you can at least wash off the smoke damage from getting that close to damnation."
A voice from the backseat said, "Where are you taking me?"
Nicolas didn't sound afraid. He did sound confused and the gurgling of his stomach that followed let the young mage know that the teenage 'sculpting prodigy' hadn't had the chance to enjoy the buffet.
Nicolas could only see Jacob's face from his lounging position and made some radical conclusions. "Look, no need for all of that. Just pull over and it's five dollars for the hands. I don't do nothing else."
Jacob snorted. "The hook line for 'mouth is ten and the back door's twenty but I want to see if you'll pay more'."
Orison did pull over then. "Firstly, don't show off the scum thuggery knowledge, Jacob. If it's helpful, then fine but that sh*t just flipped my stomach. Secondly, the initial response to a teenager offering inappropriate services to an adult for anything should be moral outrage at society and either distancing yourself or offer to get them whatever help they need to get out of their bad situation if you're feeling extra goody two shoes. If you EVER lay your hands on a minor from here on, you better ask for that bus ticket to Cali before I find out about it."
Jacob withered into his seat looking like he wished he could disappear. "I-I'm sorry. It's just habit. I'm trying. I really am."
Suddenly feeling like he'd kicked an old rescue dog just because it liked to bark too much, the young mage said, "I know you are and I might have overreacted a little but child predators have a special place on my sh*t list no one who can't kick my a** should ever want to be on."
Nicolas had a strange look on his face as he practically gawked at Orison before he said, "Hey, it's not a big deal. I'm really not like that, though. I just figured if I was yanked up by a funny uncle or something, I'd rather close my eyes and pretend to wet some clay for a fiver than end up locked in a basement or floating face down somewhere."
Orison was about to comment on that when he heard something on the radio that got his attention. An emergency national broadcast was urging people to stay in their homes and off the streets in all major metropolitan areas of the east coast and southern gulf. He was about to crack a joke about jumping on the bus to Cali WITH Jacob when an update talked about fault line activity that was strong enough to shake the Hollywood sign loose.
The car lapsed into silence over the string of natural and man made disasters that had racked up across the Nation. There were incidences elsewhere in the world but this was a 'patriotic' station. It was also the only one on air. When a pastor of one protestant denomination or other got on and started bible thumping, Orison turned the radio off.
As they pulled up to his house, Orison took it in. Somewhere between a castle and a max security prison, he wondered what the person who built it was thinking of. Some of that was answered due to Nicolas' knowledge and love of architecture. It boiled down to the man having a schizophrenic break in later years, nearly bankrupting himself to build it. The man's son had held on to the property for nearly two years before Zeke came along and snatched it up for pennies on the dollar to keep the bank from seizing it.
Orison could see why it wouldn't appeal to the standard homeowner. It was quite oppressive looking and upkeep would be hell. Despite all of it's amazing plethora of features, it was ugly. Twenty years down the road, it would cost more to maintenance the place than it probably cost to build it.
Zeke had an interesting arrangement for it that Orison really didn't know what to think about. He wasn't the actual owner. He held a ten year lease on it that would default to the security firm that would be responsible for manning it while he lived there. A whole platoon of Great War veterans with a need for stability and purpose would be occupying the front quarters. The back half and all its amenities were Orison and friends' private areas.
The nicest part of the arrangement, as far as the young mage was concerned, was that he and up to five others of his choosing were capable of mooching breakfast and lunch whenever they wanted and he could request evening meals as long as he provided any additional funds or ingredients for it at least a full day in advance. He had all the comfort, privacy and mundane protection a person could want with just the right touch of reminders he wasn't supposed to be getting settled in.
After a little consult with the teenage Nicolas, they called his patron/guardian to find that no one would answer. With all the chaos at the moment, he agreed to stay until Mrs. Gorgonos could be contacted. Once Nicolas and a bribe to the cook was squared away, the young mage tried to contact Neil.
He couldn't get a hold of the detective either but that ended up being pointless when Neil came strolling into the den in exercise clothes. The detective had appeared here near where Zeke's aunt was sleeping in the front quarters. A tense situation later, he was doing an evening run and weight lifting with the crew. Out of all of them, Neil was probably the most comfortable one with the present situation.
Once he was relatively settled in, there was a knock on Orison's door. Behind it was a somber man in his late twenties. He introduced himself as Mitchell, no first name needed.
"Alright, Mr Mitchell, who the f*** cares about your first name. What do you want?" the young mage sad, put off by the cold attitude.
The somber man said, "Clear lines is what I want, Mr. Cantrip. I know and trust Zeke. I don't know you and I don't know your friends. We are your trouble catchers but I hope you can keep that to the minimum. We got a spook in our unit and we aren't ignorant. We'll mind our business and you mind yours. You got a problem with one of my people, you bring it to me.
"I don't give a damn if they knocked the teeth out of one of your friends. You come to me. I'll handle it and I'll play fair as long as you do. Do we have an understanding?"
Orison said, "No, and if you don't want your ass kicked into a meatball from one side of this place to the other with god and everyone else as witness, you'll leave through the door you just entered and try again with a little more courtesy."
The man gave a half smile and said, "Meet me at the front court chip pit in thirty minutes. Let's see how much baby powder I can knock from your diaper, junior."
The young mage muttered to himself, "It's f***ing Captain Nadir all over again." Shouting down towards the back of Mitchell, he added, "Make sure as many of your people are there as you can. I don't entertain on demand but I'll make an exception today."
Half an hour later, Orison came down in his teaser suit. The chip pit was a circle pit filled with sliced up chunks of tire and he could feel a hum of magic from it. This was going to be a rigged fight. He looked at the spirit line that led from it to a Latino man nearby and smiled at their 'spook' before stepping in.
Immediately, Orison felt something hinder the mobility of his legs as Mitchell swept him. Unfortunately, there wasn't much that Orison could do but try to fall with control. His body felt stiff for a split second and he landed awkwardly instead. Seeing how things would go, Orison brute force surged about twenty times the magic juice stored in the circle and popped the curse twists in it like overfed ticks.
Mitchel dealt a heel kick to Orison's tailbone while the young mage had been occupied trying to recover from the circle effects. Apparently, the man wanted to give a lesson in pain that would last awhile. Orison wanted to do the same.
As Mitchell put the force of his body into a knee to the spine between Orison's shoulder blades, the young mage twisted and shot a palm into Mitchell's lower torso with power just shy of rupturing intestines. As the man forcefully released everything he had down there, out, Orison knocked the slumped over man out with an elbow to the temple.
At that point, the six people who had been jeering at Orison from the sideline, rushed in to put some pain on Orison themselves. Having flooded the circle with his own energy, he reconstructed the models in it by using the circle's own memory of them and turned them on at full force for everyone. As they did a fairly good job at hurting themselves or each other, the young mage hobbled out of the circle and started studying it as if what was going on inside had nothing to do with him.
"Mind leaving about half that power in there? We could do a lot of good training with that and I could use more of my 'ache' for something else," their 'spook' said conversationally.
Orison nodded. "I'll fill it back up when I'm done. I've already added you as an exception if you want to start pulling out the ones who aren't conscious anymore or have broken something."
As he started pulling people out, Santos introduced himself. "Aiya! Man, take it easy. I'm going to be up all night trying to fix all this."
The young mage said, "That's YOUR pain for being involved in this sh*t show. If I hadn't seen a vaguely recognizable healing sigil in there, you'd have been in there too."
Santos shook his head and muttered, "Ruthless." Suddenly, his head shot up and he added in a somewhat squeaky tone. "You can see them!? Then you're studying my legacy!?��
Orison shrugged and said, "You whip it out, I'm gonna look. Just to compare, mind you. I don't want to touch it or anything."
Santos chuckled. "You're a sick f***er, you know that? We're gonna get along just fine."
As the last couple of people finally endured enough suffering, Orison struck up a conversation with Santos. He found that he liked the guy enough to blood anoint the brujo's eyes so he could teach the packaging trick normally used on enchantments. To return the favor and sucker Orison into helping him heal his friends, Santos led the young mage through his version of circle healing. It wasn't overly different.
Where Orison leaned on the more gentle and nourishing nature of plants, Santos harnessed the raw and explosive vitality of animal parts but the core concept of sacrifice was the same. When blended, Santos' method added a little speed of healing to what the young mage was used to. Even if it was a little slower in eyes of the brujo, Orison's method left fewer traces of the injury after the healing was done.
One of the bigger and meaner looking of their group came up to Orison after they were done sorting everyone out. "Bet you're not such a hot shot without your magic tricks."
Bored, the young mage said, "Dude, I could be naked, blind and half frozen to death and still stomp your d*ck into the dirt. Go find somewhere to cool off before I embarrass you."
Before the man had a chance to mouth off, Mitchell said, "He's on Zeke's level. We're child's play. When I stomped his tailbone, I felt like I was kicking a shock spring."
Orison mumbled, "Still hurt like hell. It's even going to bruise for a couple of hours."
Mitchell asked, "Can I see your full strength punch with whatever fighting style you have? There's a knuckle tough pole over there."
"No." the young mage said and walked away.
He recognized that the log wrapped in hemp close to the top was a kind of rudimentary psi testing device. Orison's destructive power didn't come from applied strength alone and likely wouldn't even match the top person there. It would only serve to make him look like he could be challenged which was the opposite of what his whole point for agreeing to this alpha male chest pounding crap was to begin with.
Instead, he parkour climbed up the nearest tower and paid respects to the person who had a scoped rifle trained on him the whole time. Having passably managed to scare the crap out of the guy by climbing it faster than most would take to jog the same distance on flat land, he excused himself and made his way back to his room. Inside, he found that all the furniture had been moved out.
He took a deep breath and headed to the dinning room area. There was only two members of the group that was bouncing up and down on his last nerve but one of them had made the mistake of sneezing while taking down his curtains. The young mage walked up to the man and introduced himself with his driver's license.
Giving a saintly smile, Orison said, "Nice to meet you. As soon as you're done having your late meal, you and your friends are going to return my furniture before ten. IF you don't make that happen, within the next day or two, you will not have a single hair on your entire body. Santos won't be able to bring it back if he has a raise from the dead ritual at his disposal.
"If someone else ever violates my private area like that again, people will need to hold a seance to contact them. It'll probably just be a whole bunch of screaming sounds phonetically spelled out, though... Enjoy your meal."
Noting that it was already a quarter til nine, it would be a whole lot harder to carry up than down and he wouldn't be able to do it by himself, the man slurped down his food in under three minutes and went rushing off to find help. After having checked the remainder of Jacob and Nicolas' food for some form of hazing tampering and finding none, he made a little chit chat and then stood at the entrance of the kitchen door.
"Out of morbid curiosity, if I had wanted to eat something, what would you have done to it? If you have any idea why everyone seems intent on hazing me in one way or another, I'd be appreciative to know the answer to that as well." Orison said to the relatively nice seeming man who ran the kitchen.
The cook stopped brick scrubbing the grill and said, "No one messes with the food. Even if I hated you, I would refuse to make you something rather than waste good food. As for the second, because you're Zeke's family, I think most of them want to see how much like him you are."
Orison said, "That sounds like a hair of truth to cover a ton of bullsh*t. My tolerance is officially used up. Everyone better thank whatever deities they believe in that no one had f***ed with my friends. If you guys had even an ounce of an idea what kind of day I had before coming here, none of you would have had the balls to do what was done except for the exceptionally stupid or suicidal."
He laid down the garage receipt that Jacob had just given him along with a museum ticket stub and walked out.
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In the loud silence that was the museum, Orison walked over to where Smiley lay and worked his will over the mummified man until he could finally pull the impossibly living thing into his space to be churned into near nothingness again. There was no joy in such a grim victory. He had done it only to ensure an enemy wouldn't suddenly rise from the ashes later to haunt him again.
Looking around and seeing no one but an unconscious Nicolas that wasn't a mummy, much less known or a person he felt moved to give aid to, he picked up the teenager and left the museum. Upon exiting the front foyer into the dimming daylight of early evening, it was as if a vacuum of timelessness had ruptured allowing the flow of the world to return to the museum's innards. The sounds of sirens drew nearer by the moment as he noted his car in the mostly empty parking lot.
Inside the car, a sleeping Jacob slumped over the steering wheel. Once Orison laid Nicolas out in the back seat, he pushed Jacob over to slump into the front seat and propped the man's feet past the gear stick. If he had been in a better mood, he might have laughed at Jacob's somewhat painful looking fetal position as he got behind the wheel and drove off.
As much as he didn't want to return to the hotel, Orison needed to at least cursorily attempt to figure out what happened to Jen. After checking at the front desk, he found out that a gentleman had escorted her to pick up her and Wendy's things. Their key had already been turned in. With nothing in his room, he did the same. Once he had reassured the concierge that nothing was wrong, they just didn't need the room anymore, he was on his way to the new house.
Halfway there, Jacob woke up and after a bit of a confused start, righted himself on the passenger's side. "I had the strangest dream. Me, James and Jimmy were all young again but it wasn't the past. It- it was..."
Orison said nothing as Jacob cried a little.
The man said, "Sorry about that. Even though it was strange at parts it was nice. We weren't bad men, we were ornery kids that didn't know much about the dark and ugly world."
The young mage said, "It's not the world that's ugly, Jacob. It's the people shaped scum decorations that make it look that way. You don't have to be one of them anymore but that doesn't mean you weren't one for awhile. Atone, my leaky eyed friend. Even if you can't be that simple and clean soul again, you can at least wash off the smoke damage from getting that close to damnation."
A voice from the backseat said, "Where are you taking me?"
Nicolas didn't sound afraid. He did sound confused and the gurgling of his stomach that followed let the young mage know that the teenage 'sculpting prodigy' hadn't had the chance to enjoy the buffet.
Nicolas could only see Jacob's face from his lounging position and made some radical conclusions. "Look, no need for all of that. Just pull over and it's five dollars for the hands. I don't do nothing else."
Jacob snorted. "The hook line for 'mouth is ten and the back door's twenty but I want to see if you'll pay more'."
Orison did pull over then. "Firstly, don't show off the scum thuggery knowledge, Jacob. If it's helpful, then fine but that sh*t just flipped my stomach. Secondly, the initial response to a teenager offering inappropriate services to an adult for anything should be moral outrage at society and either distancing yourself or offer to get them whatever help they need to get out of their bad situation if you're feeling extra goody two shoes. If you EVER lay your hands on a minor from here on, you better ask for that bus ticket to Cali before I find out about it."
Jacob withered into his seat looking like he wished he could disappear. "I-I'm sorry. It's just habit. I'm trying. I really am."
Suddenly feeling like he'd kicked an old rescue dog just because it liked to bark too much, the young mage said, "I know you are and I might have overreacted a little but child predators have a special place on my sh*t list no one who can't kick my a** should ever want to be on."
Nicolas had a strange look on his face as he practically gawked at Orison before he said, "Hey, it's not a big deal. I'm really not like that, though. I just figured if I was yanked up by a funny uncle or something, I'd rather close my eyes and pretend to wet some clay for a fiver than end up locked in a basement or floating face down somewhere."
Orison was about to comment on that when he heard something on the radio that got his attention. An emergency national broadcast was urging people to stay in their homes and off the streets in all major metropolitan areas of the east coast and southern gulf. He was about to crack a joke about jumping on the bus to Cali WITH Jacob when an update talked about fault line activity that was strong enough to shake the Hollywood sign loose.
The car lapsed into silence over the string of natural and man made disasters that had racked up across the Nation. There were incidences elsewhere in the world but this was a 'patriotic' station. It was also the only one on air. When a pastor of one protestant denomination or other got on and started bible thumping, Orison turned the radio off.
As they pulled up to his house, Orison took it in. Somewhere between a castle and a max security prison, he wondered what the person who built it was thinking of. Some of that was answered due to Nicolas' knowledge and love of architecture. It boiled down to the man having a schizophrenic break in later years, nearly bankrupting himself to build it. The man's son had held on to the property for nearly two years before Zeke came along and snatched it up for pennies on the dollar to keep the bank from seizing it.
Orison could see why it wouldn't appeal to the standard homeowner. It was quite oppressive looking and upkeep would be hell. Despite all of it's amazing plethora of features, it was ugly. Twenty years down the road, it would cost more to maintenance the place than it probably cost to build it.
Zeke had an interesting arrangement for it that Orison really didn't know what to think about. He wasn't the actual owner. He held a ten year lease on it that would default to the security firm that would be responsible for manning it while he lived there. A whole platoon of Great War veterans with a need for stability and purpose would be occupying the front quarters. The back half and all its amenities were Orison and friends' private areas.
The nicest part of the arrangement, as far as the young mage was concerned, was that he and up to five others of his choosing were capable of mooching breakfast and lunch whenever they wanted and he could request evening meals as long as he provided any additional funds or ingredients for it at least a full day in advance. He had all the comfort, privacy and mundane protection a person could want with just the right touch of reminders he wasn't supposed to be getting settled in.
After a little consult with the teenage Nicolas, they called his patron/guardian to find that no one would answer. With all the chaos at the moment, he agreed to stay until Mrs. Gorgonos could be contacted. Once Nicolas and a bribe to the cook was squared away, the young mage tried to contact Neil.
He couldn't get a hold of the detective either but that ended up being pointless when Neil came strolling into the den in exercise clothes. The detective had appeared here near where Zeke's aunt was sleeping in the front quarters. A tense situation later, he was doing an evening run and weight lifting with the crew. Out of all of them, Neil was probably the most comfortable one with the present situation.
Once he was relatively settled in, there was a knock on Orison's door. Behind it was a somber man in his late twenties. He introduced himself as Mitchell, no first name needed.
"Alright, Mr Mitchell, who the f*** cares about your first name. What do you want?" the young mage sad, put off by the cold attitude.
The somber man said, "Clear lines is what I want, Mr. Cantrip. I know and trust Zeke. I don't know you and I don't know your friends. We are your trouble catchers but I hope you can keep that to the minimum. We got a spook in our unit and we aren't ignorant. We'll mind our business and you mind yours. You got a problem with one of my people, you bring it to me.
"I don't give a damn if they knocked the teeth out of one of your friends. You come to me. I'll handle it and I'll play fair as long as you do. Do we have an understanding?"
Orison said, "No, and if you don't want your ass kicked into a meatball from one side of this place to the other with god and everyone else as witness, you'll leave through the door you just entered and try again with a little more courtesy."
The man gave a half smile and said, "Meet me at the front court chip pit in thirty minutes. Let's see how much baby powder I can knock from your diaper, junior."
The young mage muttered to himself, "It's f***ing Captain Nadir all over again." Shouting down towards the back of Mitchell, he added, "Make sure as many of your people are there as you can. I don't entertain on demand but I'll make an exception today."
Half an hour later, Orison came down in his teaser suit. The chip pit was a circle pit filled with sliced up chunks of tire and he could feel a hum of magic from it. This was going to be a rigged fight. He looked at the spirit line that led from it to a Latino man nearby and smiled at their 'spook' before stepping in.
Immediately, Orison felt something hinder the mobility of his legs as Mitchell swept him. Unfortunately, there wasn't much that Orison could do but try to fall with control. His body felt stiff for a split second and he landed awkwardly instead. Seeing how things would go, Orison brute force surged about twenty times the magic juice stored in the circle and popped the curse twists in it like overfed ticks.
Mitchel dealt a heel kick to Orison's tailbone while the young mage had been occupied trying to recover from the circle effects. Apparently, the man wanted to give a lesson in pain that would last awhile. Orison wanted to do the same.
As Mitchell put the force of his body into a knee to the spine between Orison's shoulder blades, the young mage twisted and shot a palm into Mitchell's lower torso with power just shy of rupturing intestines. As the man forcefully released everything he had down there, out, Orison knocked the slumped over man out with an elbow to the temple.
At that point, the six people who had been jeering at Orison from the sideline, rushed in to put some pain on Orison themselves. Having flooded the circle with his own energy, he reconstructed the models in it by using the circle's own memory of them and turned them on at full force for everyone. As they did a fairly good job at hurting themselves or each other, the young mage hobbled out of the circle and started studying it as if what was going on inside had nothing to do with him.
"Mind leaving about half that power in there? We could do a lot of good training with that and I could use more of my 'ache' for something else," their 'spook' said conversationally.
Orison nodded. "I'll fill it back up when I'm done. I've already added you as an exception if you want to start pulling out the ones who aren't conscious anymore or have broken something."
As he started pulling people out, Santos introduced himself. "Aiya! Man, take it easy. I'm going to be up all night trying to fix all this."
The young mage said, "That's YOUR pain for being involved in this sh*t show. If I hadn't seen a vaguely recognizable healing sigil in there, you'd have been in there too."
Santos shook his head and muttered, "Ruthless." Suddenly, his head shot up and he added in a somewhat squeaky tone. "You can see them!? Then you're studying my legacy!?��
Orison shrugged and said, "You whip it out, I'm gonna look. Just to compare, mind you. I don't want to touch it or anything."
Santos chuckled. "You're a sick f***er, you know that? We're gonna get along just fine."
As the last couple of people finally endured enough suffering, Orison struck up a conversation with Santos. He found that he liked the guy enough to blood anoint the brujo's eyes so he could teach the packaging trick normally used on enchantments. To return the favor and sucker Orison into helping him heal his friends, Santos led the young mage through his version of circle healing. It wasn't overly different.
Where Orison leaned on the more gentle and nourishing nature of plants, Santos harnessed the raw and explosive vitality of animal parts but the core concept of sacrifice was the same. When blended, Santos' method added a little speed of healing to what the young mage was used to. Even if it was a little slower in eyes of the brujo, Orison's method left fewer traces of the injury after the healing was done.
One of the bigger and meaner looking of their group came up to Orison after they were done sorting everyone out. "Bet you're not such a hot shot without your magic tricks."
Bored, the young mage said, "Dude, I could be naked, blind and half frozen to death and still stomp your d*ck into the dirt. Go find somewhere to cool off before I embarrass you."
Before the man had a chance to mouth off, Mitchell said, "He's on Zeke's level. We're child's play. When I stomped his tailbone, I felt like I was kicking a shock spring."
Orison mumbled, "Still hurt like hell. It's even going to bruise for a couple of hours."
Mitchell asked, "Can I see your full strength punch with whatever fighting style you have? There's a knuckle tough pole over there."
"No." the young mage said and walked away.
He recognized that the log wrapped in hemp close to the top was a kind of rudimentary psi testing device. Orison's destructive power didn't come from applied strength alone and likely wouldn't even match the top person there. It would only serve to make him look like he could be challenged which was the opposite of what his whole point for agreeing to this alpha male chest pounding crap was to begin with.
Instead, he parkour climbed up the nearest tower and paid respects to the person who had a scoped rifle trained on him the whole time. Having passably managed to scare the crap out of the guy by climbing it faster than most would take to jog the same distance on flat land, he excused himself and made his way back to his room. Inside, he found that all the furniture had been moved out.
He took a deep breath and headed to the dinning room area. There was only two members of the group that was bouncing up and down on his last nerve but one of them had made the mistake of sneezing while taking down his curtains. The young mage walked up to the man and introduced himself with his driver's license.
Giving a saintly smile, Orison said, "Nice to meet you. As soon as you're done having your late meal, you and your friends are going to return my furniture before ten. IF you don't make that happen, within the next day or two, you will not have a single hair on your entire body. Santos won't be able to bring it back if he has a raise from the dead ritual at his disposal.
"If someone else ever violates my private area like that again, people will need to hold a seance to contact them. It'll probably just be a whole bunch of screaming sounds phonetically spelled out, though... Enjoy your meal."
Noting that it was already a quarter til nine, it would be a whole lot harder to carry up than down and he wouldn't be able to do it by himself, the man slurped down his food in under three minutes and went rushing off to find help. After having checked the remainder of Jacob and Nicolas' food for some form of hazing tampering and finding none, he made a little chit chat and then stood at the entrance of the kitchen door.
"Out of morbid curiosity, if I had wanted to eat something, what would you have done to it? If you have any idea why everyone seems intent on hazing me in one way or another, I'd be appreciative to know the answer to that as well." Orison said to the relatively nice seeming man who ran the kitchen.
The cook stopped brick scrubbing the grill and said, "No one messes with the food. Even if I hated you, I would refuse to make you something rather than waste good food. As for the second, because you're Zeke's family, I think most of them want to see how much like him you are."
Orison said, "That sounds like a hair of truth to cover a ton of bullsh*t. My tolerance is officially used up. Everyone better thank whatever deities they believe in that no one had f***ed with my friends. If you guys had even an ounce of an idea what kind of day I had before coming here, none of you would have had the balls to do what was done except for the exceptionally stupid or suicidal."
He laid down the garage receipt that Jacob had just given him along with a museum ticket stub and walked out.
In the loud silence that was the museum, Orison walked over to where Smiley lay and worked his will over the mummified man until he could finally pull the impossibly living thing into his space to be churned into near nothingness again. There was no joy in such a grim victory. He had done it only to ensure an enemy wouldn't suddenly rise from the ashes later to haunt him again. Looking around and seeing no one but an unconscious Nicolas that wasn't a mummy, much less known or a person he felt moved to give aid to, he picked up the teenager and left the museum. Upon exiting the front foyer into the dimming daylight of early evening, it was as if a vacuum of timelessness had ruptured allowing the flow of the world to return to the museum's innards. The sounds of sirens drew nearer by the moment as he noted his car in the mostly empty parking lot. Inside the car, a sleeping Jacob slumped over the steering wheel. Once Orison laid Nicolas out in the back seat, he pushed Jacob over to slump into the front seat and propped the man's feet past the gear stick. If he had been in a better mood, he might have laughed at Jacob's somewhat painful looking fetal position as he got behind the wheel and drove off. As much as he didn't want to return to the hotel, Orison needed to at least cursorily attempt to figure out what happened to Jen. After checking at the front desk, he found out that a gentleman had escorted her to pick up her and Wendy's things. Their key had already been turned in. With nothing in his room, he did the same. Once he had reassured the concierge that nothing was wrong, they just didn't need the room anymore, he was on his way to the new house. Halfway there, Jacob woke up and after a bit of a confused start, righted himself on the passenger's side. "I had the strangest dream. Me, James and Jimmy were all young again but it wasn't the past. It- it was..." Orison said nothing as Jacob cried a little. The man said, "Sorry about that. Even though it was strange at parts it was nice. We weren't bad men, we were ornery kids that didn't know much about the dark and ugly world." The young mage said, "It's not the world that's ugly, Jacob. It's the people shaped scum decorations that make it look that way. You don't have to be one of them anymore but that doesn't mean you weren't one for awhile. Atone, my leaky eyed friend. Even if you can't be that simple and clean soul again, you can at least wash off the smoke damage from getting that close to damnation." A voice from the backseat said, "Where are you taking me?" Nicolas didn't sound afraid. He did sound confused and the gurgling of his stomach that followed let the young mage know that the teenage 'sculpting prodigy' hadn't had the chance to enjoy the buffet. Nicolas could only see Jacob's face from his lounging position and made some radical conclusions. "Look, no need for all of that. Just pull over and it's five dollars for the hands. I don't do nothing else." Jacob snorted. "The hook line for 'mouth is ten and the back door's twenty but I want to see if you'll pay more'." Orison did pull over then. "Firstly, don't show off the scum thuggery knowledge, Jacob. If it's helpful, then fine but that sh*t just flipped my stomach. Secondly, the initial response to a teenager offering inappropriate services to an adult for anything should be moral outrage at society and either distancing yourself or offer to get them whatever help they need to get out of their bad situation if you're feeling extra goody two shoes. If you EVER lay your hands on a minor from here on, you better ask for that bus ticket to Cali before I find out about it." Jacob withered into his seat looking like he wished he could disappear. "I-I'm sorry. It's just habit. I'm trying. I really am." Suddenly feeling like he'd kicked an old rescue dog just because it liked to bark too much, the young mage said, "I know you are and I might have overreacted a little but child predators have a special place on my sh*t list no one who can't kick my a** should ever want to be on." Nicolas had a strange look on his face as he practically gawked at Orison before he said, "Hey, it's not a big deal. I'm really not like that, though. I just figured if I was yanked up by a funny uncle or something, I'd rather close my eyes and pretend to wet some clay for a fiver than end up locked in a basement or floating face down somewhere." Orison was about to comment on that when he heard something on the radio that got his attention. An emergency national broadcast was urging people to stay in their homes and off the streets in all major metropolitan areas of the east coast and southern gulf. He was about to crack a joke about jumping on the bus to Cali WITH Jacob when an update talked about fault line activity that was strong enough to shake the Hollywood sign loose. The car lapsed into silence over the string of natural and man made disasters that had racked up across the Nation. There were incidences elsewhere in the world but this was a 'patriotic' station. It was also the only one on air. When a pastor of one protestant denomination or other got on and started bible thumping, Orison turned the radio off. As they pulled up to his house, Orison took it in. Somewhere between a castle and a max security prison, he wondered what the person who built it was thinking of. Some of that was answered due to Nicolas' knowledge and love of architecture. It boiled down to the man having a schizophrenic break in later years, nearly bankrupting himself to build it. The man's son had held on to the property for nearly two years before Zeke came along and snatched it up for pennies on the dollar to keep the bank from seizing it. Orison could see why it wouldn't appeal to the standard homeowner. It was quite oppressive looking and upkeep would be hell. Despite all of it's amazing plethora of features, it was ugly. Twenty years down the road, it would cost more to maintenance the place than it probably cost to build it. Zeke had an interesting arrangement for it that Orison really didn't know what to think about. He wasn't the actual owner. He held a ten year lease on it that would default to the security firm that would be responsible for manning it while he lived there. A whole platoon of Great War veterans with a need for stability and purpose would be occupying the front quarters. The back half and all its amenities were Orison and friends' private areas. The nicest part of the arrangement, as far as the young mage was concerned, was that he and up to five others of his choosing were capable of mooching breakfast and lunch whenever they wanted and he could request evening meals as long as he provided any additional funds or ingredients for it at least a full day in advance. He had all the comfort, privacy and mundane protection a person could want with just the right touch of reminders he wasn't supposed to be getting settled in. After a little consult with the teenage Nicolas, they called his patron/guardian to find that no one would answer. With all the chaos at the moment, he agreed to stay until Mrs. Gorgonos could be contacted. Once Nicolas and a bribe to the cook was squared away, the young mage tried to contact Neil. He couldn't get a hold of the detective either but that ended up being pointless when Neil came strolling into the den in exercise clothes. The detective had appeared here near where Zeke's aunt was sleeping in the front quarters. A tense situation later, he was doing an evening run and weight lifting with the crew. Out of all of them, Neil was probably the most comfortable one with the present situation. Once he was relatively settled in, there was a knock on Orison's door. Behind it was a somber man in his late twenties. He introduced himself as Mitchell, no first name needed. "Alright, Mr Mitchell, who the f*** cares about your first name. What do you want?" the young mage sad, put off by the cold attitude. The somber man said, "Clear lines is what I want, Mr. Cantrip. I know and trust Zeke. I don't know you and I don't know your friends. We are your trouble catchers but I hope you can keep that to the minimum. We got a spook in our unit and we aren't ignorant. We'll mind our business and you mind yours. You got a problem with one of my people, you bring it to me. "I don't give a damn if they knocked the teeth out of one of your friends. You come to me. I'll handle it and I'll play fair as long as you do. Do we have an understanding?" Orison said, "No, and if you don't want your ass kicked into a meatball from one side of this place to the other with god and everyone else as witness, you'll leave through the door you just entered and try again with a little more courtesy." The man gave a half smile and said, "Meet me at the front court chip pit in thirty minutes. Let's see how much baby powder I can knock from your diaper, junior." The young mage muttered to himself, "It's f***ing Captain Nadir all over again." Shouting down towards the back of Mitchell, he added, "Make sure as many of your people are there as you can. I don't entertain on demand but I'll make an exception today." Half an hour later, Orison came down in his teaser suit. The chip pit was a circle pit filled with sliced up chunks of tire and he could feel a hum of magic from it. This was going to be a rigged fight. He looked at the spirit line that led from it to a Latino man nearby and smiled at their 'spook' before stepping in. Immediately, Orison felt something hinder the mobility of his legs as Mitchell swept him. Unfortunately, there wasn't much that Orison could do but try to fall with control. His body felt stiff for a split second and he landed awkwardly instead. Seeing how things would go, Orison brute force surged about twenty times the magic juice stored in the circle and popped the curse twists in it like overfed ticks. Mitchel dealt a heel kick to Orison's tailbone while the young mage had been occupied trying to recover from the circle effects. Apparently, the man wanted to give a lesson in pain that would last awhile. Orison wanted to do the same. As Mitchell put the force of his body into a knee to the spine between Orison's shoulder blades, the young mage twisted and shot a palm into Mitchell's lower torso with power just shy of rupturing intestines. As the man forcefully released everything he had down there, out, Orison knocked the slumped over man out with an elbow to the temple. At that point, the six people who had been jeering at Orison from the sideline, rushed in to put some pain on Orison themselves. Having flooded the circle with his own energy, he reconstructed the models in it by using the circle's own memory of them and turned them on at full force for everyone. As they did a fairly good job at hurting themselves or each other, the young mage hobbled out of the circle and started studying it as if what was going on inside had nothing to do with him. "Mind leaving about half that power in there? We could do a lot of good training with that and I could use more of my 'ache' for something else," their 'spook' said conversationally. Orison nodded. "I'll fill it back up when I'm done. I've already added you as an exception if you want to start pulling out the ones who aren't conscious anymore or have broken something." As he started pulling people out, Santos introduced himself. "Aiya! Man, take it easy. I'm going to be up all night trying to fix all this." The young mage said, "That's YOUR pain for being involved in this sh*t show. If I hadn't seen a vaguely recognizable healing sigil in there, you'd have been in there too." Santos shook his head and muttered, "Ruthless." Suddenly, his head shot up and he added in a somewhat squeaky tone. "You can see them!? Then you're studying my legacy!? Orison shrugged and said, "You whip it out, I'm gonna look. Just to compare, mind you. I don't want to touch it or anything." Santos chuckled. "You're a sick f***er, you know that? We're gonna get along just fine." As the last couple of people finally endured enough suffering, Orison struck up a conversation with Santos. He found that he liked the guy enough to blood anoint the brujo's eyes so he could teach the packaging trick normally used on enchantments. To return the favor and sucker Orison into helping him heal his friends, Santos led the young mage through his version of circle healing. It wasn't overly different. Where Orison leaned on the more gentle and nourishing nature of plants, Santos harnessed the raw and explosive vitality of animal parts but the core concept of sacrifice was the same. When blended, Santos' method added a little speed of healing to what the young mage was used to. Even if it was a little slower in eyes of the brujo, Orison's method left fewer traces of the injury after the healing was done. One of the bigger and meaner looking of their group came up to Orison after they were done sorting everyone out. "Bet you're not such a hot shot without your magic tricks." Bored, the young mage said, "Dude, I could be naked, blind and half frozen to death and still stomp your d*ck into the dirt. Go find somewhere to cool off before I embarrass you." Before the man had a chance to mouth off, Mitchell said, "He's on Zeke's level. We're child's play. When I stomped his tailbone, I felt like I was kicking a shock spring." Orison mumbled, "Still hurt like hell. It's even going to bruise for a couple of hours." Mitchell asked, "Can I see your full strength punch with whatever fighting style you have? There's a knuckle tough pole over there." "No." the young mage said and walked away. He recognized that the log wrapped in hemp close to the top was a kind of rudimentary psi testing device. Orison's destructive power didn't come from applied strength alone and likely wouldn't even match the top person there. It would only serve to make him look like he could be challenged which was the opposite of what his whole point for agreeing to this alpha male chest pounding crap was to begin with. Instead, he parkour climbed up the nearest tower and paid respects to the person who had a scoped rifle trained on him the whole time. Having passably managed to scare the crap out of the guy by climbing it faster than most would take to jog the same distance on flat land, he excused himself and made his way back to his room. Inside, he found that all the furniture had been moved out. He took a deep breath and headed to the dinning room area. There was only two members of the group that was bouncing up and down on his last nerve but one of them had made the mistake of sneezing while taking down his curtains. The young mage walked up to the man and introduced himself with his driver's license. Giving a saintly smile, Orison said, "Nice to meet you. As soon as you're done having your late meal, you and your friends are going to return my furniture before ten. IF you don't make that happen, within the next day or two, you will not have a single hair on your entire body. Santos won't be able to bring it back if he has a raise from the dead ritual at his disposal. "If someone else ever violates my private area like that again, people will need to hold a seance to contact them. It'll probably just be a whole bunch of screaming sounds phonetically spelled out, though... Enjoy your meal." Noting that it was already a quarter til nine, it would be a whole lot harder to carry up than down and he wouldn't be able to do it by himself, the man slurped down his food in under three minutes and went rushing off to find help. After having checked the remainder of Jacob and Nicolas' food for some form of hazing tampering and finding none, he made a little chit chat and then stood at the entrance of the kitchen door. "Out of morbid curiosity, if I had wanted to eat something, what would you have done to it? If you have any idea why everyone seems intent on hazing me in one way or another, I'd be appreciative to know the answer to that as well." Orison said to the relatively nice seeming man who ran the kitchen. The cook stopped brick scrubbing the grill and said, "No one messes with the food. Even if I hated you, I would refuse to make you something rather than waste good food. As for the second, because you're Zeke's family, I think most of them want to see how much like him you are." Orison said, "That sounds like a hair of truth to cover a ton of bullsh*t. My tolerance is officially used up. Everyone better thank whatever deities they believe in that no one had f***ed with my friends. If you guys had even an ounce of an idea what kind of day I had before coming here, none of you would have had the balls to do what was done except for the exceptionally stupid or suicidal." He laid down the garage receipt that Jacob had just given him along with a museum ticket stub and walked out.
