Chapter 204: 204
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"No wonder you hardly ever come upstairs. What you going to put over there?" She asked.
Al looked up from his computer and said, "I thought I might put in a pool table and dart board. Maybe a minibar and card table instead. I haven't really decided yet."
"Now, stop me if I'm wrong. Are you going to wait and see if Deshawn going snatch up that Mimi? If he do, you going to ask him what he thinks look good over there, aren't you?" the overly sharp woman asked.
Avoiding addressing what she was getting at, Al said, "I thought I'd ask him anyway. He has a good eye for comfort and detail."
A steely glint in her eye, she said, "See, and that there give you away more than anything. If Hunter wants to hear his-self a ghost, he only got to put that microphone up to your mouth... Why, I bet that little girl upstairs name is the only one on the title of this house...
"They ain't seen it yet. If they do, they don't know what it mean. You dying, got someone after you? Why you got to be ready to disappear? Do it got something to do with that key?"
He sighed and said, "I don't plan on being gone anytime soon. I just have to be ready... And don't put the cart before the horse on Deshawn and my niece. Just because I haven't stepped in doesn't mean I won't if there's a reason to. That said, I would rest easier if I knew she had a solid guy looking after her. She's not the type to be able to stand on her own. At least, not yet."
With a bit of challenge in her eyes, she said, "You think Deshawn's a solid guy?"
Al said, "If it was a month ago? No. Now? Yes, I would. Before, he hated his addiction but now he fears it. He has things to lose. He won't have any trouble letting go of that key when he needs to. I believe he'll help Devon let go of it too... Like I said, he used to hate his addiction but now he fears it."
The woman tried to laugh but it turned into a few weak sobs before she pulled herself back together quickly. "I think you right... You know, when I first heard what was going on, I thought you was the devil. Whatever you is ain't nothing godly but it ain't the devil neither."
As if a weight was lifted from her chest, she took an easy breath and laughed. "If you is, you done got soft in your old age!"
Chuckling, Al said, "The only soft thing about me is this last bit of stubborn belly fat. If anyone's the devil in this house, it's you. Always tempting me to go back for seconds. As if I can say no."
He was ready to just chuckle and move on with his own affairs when he heard Myra scream too but it was one that transformed into rage. It was a scream that ended abruptly. His heart dropped to his stomach as he bound up the stairs.
Quietly, he opened the pantry door and peeked out to see that one man was standing over the two, a thin streak of blood on the side of a baseball bat. He wasn't exactly sure what happened after that because all he could see was red. A shouting woman's voice cut through and told him to quit beating the dead men and get rid of the bodies so she could call an ambulance.
Within the red fog, Al realized that his niece was hurt and that knocked him out of his temporary insanity cold. Rushing over to her, he reached out to see that he was covered in a suit, two bullets lodged in the forearm. Putting that discovery to the back of his mind, he quickly checked her out to see that she wasn't breathing right.
Her neck was bent an unnatural angle but she was somehow still alive. Carefully, he trickled about half of the better healing potion he had down her throat while slowly straightening her head out. It wasn't necessary. Unlike the ones he or the miasma had made, this one had a touch of faith essence inside and that meant it was capable of fixing things while they healed.
She wasn't quite ready to face the waking world yet but physically, there wasn't anything wrong that Al could tell. After corking the rest of the potion and storing it, he checked on Hunter who was looking at the ceiling with glassy, unfocused eyes, a huge knot raising on his head. He ran the most amount of healing he could without rupturing his channels and rubbed in a couple of drops out of the lesser healing potion into the swollen bump before letting a couple more into Hunter's mouth.
He said, "Don't call an ambulance. Just keep an eye on them. I need to make sure that there aren't any more people on the property."
As soon as he stepped outside, two guns fired simultaneously. One hit off his helmet and the other in his arm, spinning him around. Laying on the front porch, he decided to play possum to see if they would approach. Only one did and that one let off two more into the helmet, making Al's world spin in concussive pain and nausea.
Once the man was in reaching distance, he drew back to stomp Al only to have the leg he was standing on sheered off at the thigh. Al had pulled the minor enchanted blade out and swung it as hard as he could in his position. Slipping in arterial spray, and slightly staggering from disorientation, he gave his best try to reach the other man.
Getting closer, Al recognized the fat braids. It was Jaffin. As the man slipped back into his SUV, he shot at Al's legs, knocking the unbalanced man back down again. While Jaffin peeled out, sending a spray of dirt, grass and loose gravel flying, Al activated the meager store of essence in his body.
Bounding up to his feet, Al took off at a dead sprint, diving and barely catching the man's bumper. For all of a couple of seconds, Al's gloved fingers were sinking into the hatch enough to make hand holds but then started feeling weak. With nearly everything he had left, Al punched the back glass out and started pulling himself into the SUV. A moment later, three consecutive bullets to the visor cracked the helmet and sent Al careening back out to roll on asphalt.
If Jaffir had kept going, he'd have been in the clear but the man decided to stop and put the SUV in reverse to run Al over. All in all, it hadn't been a bad idea and if he had succeeded, Al would have most likely died. A gun shot hitting the wheel coming right at his head made Jaffir swerve just enough to miss as Al watched the blown tire warble in slow motion, inches in front of his face.
Drawing on the ring, Al laid out the spiraling magic circle while feebly throwing a few sprigs of lavender. A half second later, a drowsy Jaffir slammed the back of his SUV into a tree, instantly alert again. Spooked and ready to make a run for it, he put his abused vehicle in drive but two gun shots later, he was staring blankly ahead. Macy had finished what Al had started.
Feeling hungry, thirsty, weak and so tired he could barely keep his eyes open, Al struggled to his feet and shuffled back towards the house. Looking towards Macy, who was looking back with fear in her eyes, Al disengaged the suit. He was about to speak when he suddenly realized that the only reason he had been able to stand at all was because of it and collapsed unconscious.
***
It was the dream of being the plane but something was different. There was a sense of anticipation. The lady who was one but two had sent it many gifts when she brought her afterlife planes to join their fates to its own. It had grown as much as it could but there were still too many things missing. It could have begun comprehending the laws it was missing to allow the blossoming of creation but it would need all of its living parts to become one with it which was something it understood to be undesirable.
Al felt he was carrying what the planar will needed but the only way to give it was to give up on leaving the dream. In a flash of understanding, he realized that the colors the key had gathered from the Camdis shard were never meant for him or the other Orisons at all. They were meant for the three potentials that had dwelt within the soul ring. They were a collection of reality laws and were meant to be legacies for his children.
They would live and, upon passing, they would inherit to be reborn as tier four entities with a set of laws waiting to be mastered. Vaguely, he could understand that such a thing had been possible because Keita wasn't all she had appeared to be and a portion of that had remained with the key. He could only guess that whatever she was, or had been, the only clue laid in the voices and visions that clogged her mortal mind to child-like simplicity.
Such a thought lead him down a rabbit hole of other thoughts, such as Rithus' own simplicity when they met. The man had a strong intuition that only became stronger after Orison awakened him as a climber. Other pieces of that puzzle tickled at the edges of his spiritual mind; like Jay's autistic niece, the Kaleidoscope Program and Aurora's reaction to knowing about them.
Any other thoughts along that vein were interrupted by a surging wake of spiritual essence. For a moment, Al's dream self was pulled to observe another deathbed scene. Without knowing how, he recognized the old woman laying in the bed as White's daughter.
Surrounding the bed were Gan and Tait along with a plethora of her descendants, from children to even a couple of great grandchildren. Advanced as she was in age, the only person that she recognized in the room was Gan himself. In her final moments, her rheumy eyes seemed to lock onto Al's presence.
Smiling as a few tears slipped down withered cheeks, she said. "Oh look! Daddy came to fetch me, Father. I'm going to go now, okay?"
Seconds later, as the old woman breathed her last rattling breath, Gan turned towards the point Al was looking from as well. He appeared ready to do something drastic to himself to follow but Tait laid a restraining hand and said, "If you go that way, you'll lose everything and might still not make it."
Before the dream scene ended, Tait added with an emotion thickened voice, "Let's lay Oleander to rest properly first. After that, there will be no unfinished business to hold us here any longer. We will travel our own road to meet Dad again."
A ripple ran through Al's consciousness somewhat akin to a cold chill as Oleander's soul was drawn through a connection with the 'colorless' Al hadn't known existed. As she passed 'through' him, more specifically the mass of 'color' attached to his soul, she pulled almost all of the white mass with her and a part of the colorless as well. The portion of colorless mass her soul had taken, formed an avatar to house her spirit as the white filled it in.
In the moments that followed, many things happened Al couldn't understand. But once the things ordered themselves into cohesiveness, a young woman clad in a radiant white nimbus stood on the plane. She was disoriented and confused until she felt the will of the plane reach out to her and 'explain'.
Oleander looked at the plane around her and said, "I see. The path that was robbed from us is to be restored this way. As it was in the beginning, we have been given a garden to tend. In doing so, we will grow stronger and help Daddy as well."
A slit that was half dark bale fire and half radiant light opened, revealing Noxflora. "Nor will you be alone, sister. I am but a call away and, with time, other siblings may join us."
Noxflora gazed towards Al's point of view. "You are fragmented and are not yet strong enough to observe the use of laws. I will place a veil to protect you from seeing things that may harm you. It will also protect those of us here from the eyes of outsiders."
Confused, Oleander said, "If he is not yet strong enough to observe laws, would our labor not be in vain?"
Half wicked laugh and half warm, Noxflora said, "Setting aside that it benefits ourselves, the will of this plane is capable of observing for him. It was designed to be so by his own spiritual father...
"Fragment who watches us, Zeke is not that man. He is merely that which remains of him, fashioned in his image. That man ceased to be when he closed the loop on his own existence.
"Do not hold Zeke accountable for the actions of 'that one'. Zeke is no more nor less that the true and dutiful friend you know. For what small part he played in the tragedies of Jacob, Zoe, and a few others, he has been forgiven. Please let him know, when and if you meet again. That is not a burden he should have to bear, when those greatest affected do not wish him to."
Trying to communicate in return, Al said, "Can you hear me?"
Noxflora tilted her head. "I cannot fully understand. You desire to ask me a question?"
Trying a different tactic, Al cobbled together a series of pictures and tried sending it that way.
Noxflora nodded. "You have seen Zoe's son in your dream memories. She will be pleased that he is coming into his own power... As for the rest, I know not the fate of the others who were at the muddy place.
"While the connection is still strong, I will inquire the Weird Sisters and Granny Georgia to see what they may divine for you. I do not know if it is wise to aid a fragment or not but I will send some trifles to ease your sufferings as well... Until we meet again, father..."
***
Al came to feeling like his whole being had become loose and unstable. In the next moment he was pelted by mud and stone before a weight landed on him painfully, shortly joined by a second one.
A man's voice said, "I saved the cone!"
The sound of slurping and crunching sounds was interrupted by a second man's voice. "Screw it. Three second rule."
Slurping and crunching resumed close to his other ear.
"You picked that up out of mud and ate it, Roy!?" said the first man.
After removing his own weight off the stack, the equipment specialist said, "It's healing mud. Besides, this is the best damn ice cream I've ever had."
A woman's voice came from nearby. "Adam, was it? Would you mind getting off Al. He's the mature, responsible part of Orison I was talking about... It's going to take him a little to recover from what just happened.
"Remember what you promised me for saving you from the 'space between'. Adam, I'll leave you to explain. Roy, keep this package in your badge until Al's recovered his equilibrium and then give it to him. I'd stay and explain myself but I need to stop Gan and his son from smacking into the protection around this reality and ending tragically."
As Adam removed his weight slowly and a little too handsy for Al's liking, he said in shock, "Gan had kids, like with a woman and everything!? Aaaand she's gone."
Roy said with urgency, "The crystal cores and the mud itself is quickly losing potency. We need to gather it up before this thirsty, essence deprived air ruins it."
Such a statement even galvanized the still disoriented Al to swing his ring around to collect what he could vaguely feel was special material. It was fairly easy to gather the lion's share of it too, since he was ground zero for it's arrival.
From nearby, Al heard Macy say, "These friends of yours from a crazy suit club?-You need to stay right where you are, sir or whatever the hell you are-. Are you going to keep crawling around on the ground scooping up mud and rocks like fruitcake? Put some damn clothes on!"
Embarrassed but still somewhat unable to see well, Al reactivated the suit and said, "I don't know the whole story yet, Macy, but I do sort of know these people. It's fine... You two, explanations can wait. Help her clean up the bodies before one of our neighbors has the police out here, inquiring about the gunshots... How's Myra and Hunter?"
After briefly giving the men directions like it was commonplace to be covering up a crime scene with strangers, she said, "Myra stirred long enough to take a few drinks of water before she crawled back to her room, refusing to listen to me... I don't think she's right in the head yet. Hunter's got a concussion but he's not fighting me about not going to sleep."
"Take some of this mud and put it on them. I know that sounds crazy but it's special. It'll help heal them. I'd do it myself but I can't see that well for some reason," Al said.
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"No wonder you hardly ever come upstairs. What you going to put over there?" She asked.
Al looked up from his computer and said, "I thought I might put in a pool table and dart board. Maybe a minibar and card table instead. I haven't really decided yet."
"Now, stop me if I'm wrong. Are you going to wait and see if Deshawn going snatch up that Mimi? If he do, you going to ask him what he thinks look good over there, aren't you?" the overly sharp woman asked.
Avoiding addressing what she was getting at, Al said, "I thought I'd ask him anyway. He has a good eye for comfort and detail."
A steely glint in her eye, she said, "See, and that there give you away more than anything. If Hunter wants to hear his-self a ghost, he only got to put that microphone up to your mouth... Why, I bet that little girl upstairs name is the only one on the title of this house...
"They ain't seen it yet. If they do, they don't know what it mean. You dying, got someone after you? Why you got to be ready to disappear? Do it got something to do with that key?"
He sighed and said, "I don't plan on being gone anytime soon. I just have to be ready... And don't put the cart before the horse on Deshawn and my niece. Just because I haven't stepped in doesn't mean I won't if there's a reason to. That said, I would rest easier if I knew she had a solid guy looking after her. She's not the type to be able to stand on her own. At least, not yet."
With a bit of challenge in her eyes, she said, "You think Deshawn's a solid guy?"
Al said, "If it was a month ago? No. Now? Yes, I would. Before, he hated his addiction but now he fears it. He has things to lose. He won't have any trouble letting go of that key when he needs to. I believe he'll help Devon let go of it too... Like I said, he used to hate his addiction but now he fears it."
The woman tried to laugh but it turned into a few weak sobs before she pulled herself back together quickly. "I think you right... You know, when I first heard what was going on, I thought you was the devil. Whatever you is ain't nothing godly but it ain't the devil neither."
As if a weight was lifted from her chest, she took an easy breath and laughed. "If you is, you done got soft in your old age!"
Chuckling, Al said, "The only soft thing about me is this last bit of stubborn belly fat. If anyone's the devil in this house, it's you. Always tempting me to go back for seconds. As if I can say no."
He was ready to just chuckle and move on with his own affairs when he heard Myra scream too but it was one that transformed into rage. It was a scream that ended abruptly. His heart dropped to his stomach as he bound up the stairs.
Quietly, he opened the pantry door and peeked out to see that one man was standing over the two, a thin streak of blood on the side of a baseball bat. He wasn't exactly sure what happened after that because all he could see was red. A shouting woman's voice cut through and told him to quit beating the dead men and get rid of the bodies so she could call an ambulance.
Within the red fog, Al realized that his niece was hurt and that knocked him out of his temporary insanity cold. Rushing over to her, he reached out to see that he was covered in a suit, two bullets lodged in the forearm. Putting that discovery to the back of his mind, he quickly checked her out to see that she wasn't breathing right.
Her neck was bent an unnatural angle but she was somehow still alive. Carefully, he trickled about half of the better healing potion he had down her throat while slowly straightening her head out. It wasn't necessary. Unlike the ones he or the miasma had made, this one had a touch of faith essence inside and that meant it was capable of fixing things while they healed.
She wasn't quite ready to face the waking world yet but physically, there wasn't anything wrong that Al could tell. After corking the rest of the potion and storing it, he checked on Hunter who was looking at the ceiling with glassy, unfocused eyes, a huge knot raising on his head. He ran the most amount of healing he could without rupturing his channels and rubbed in a couple of drops out of the lesser healing potion into the swollen bump before letting a couple more into Hunter's mouth.
He said, "Don't call an ambulance. Just keep an eye on them. I need to make sure that there aren't any more people on the property."
As soon as he stepped outside, two guns fired simultaneously. One hit off his helmet and the other in his arm, spinning him around. Laying on the front porch, he decided to play possum to see if they would approach. Only one did and that one let off two more into the helmet, making Al's world spin in concussive pain and nausea.
Once the man was in reaching distance, he drew back to stomp Al only to have the leg he was standing on sheered off at the thigh. Al had pulled the minor enchanted blade out and swung it as hard as he could in his position. Slipping in arterial spray, and slightly staggering from disorientation, he gave his best try to reach the other man.
Getting closer, Al recognized the fat braids. It was Jaffin. As the man slipped back into his SUV, he shot at Al's legs, knocking the unbalanced man back down again. While Jaffin peeled out, sending a spray of dirt, grass and loose gravel flying, Al activated the meager store of essence in his body.
Bounding up to his feet, Al took off at a dead sprint, diving and barely catching the man's bumper. For all of a couple of seconds, Al's gloved fingers were sinking into the hatch enough to make hand holds but then started feeling weak. With nearly everything he had left, Al punched the back glass out and started pulling himself into the SUV. A moment later, three consecutive bullets to the visor cracked the helmet and sent Al careening back out to roll on asphalt.
If Jaffir had kept going, he'd have been in the clear but the man decided to stop and put the SUV in reverse to run Al over. All in all, it hadn't been a bad idea and if he had succeeded, Al would have most likely died. A gun shot hitting the wheel coming right at his head made Jaffir swerve just enough to miss as Al watched the blown tire warble in slow motion, inches in front of his face.
Drawing on the ring, Al laid out the spiraling magic circle while feebly throwing a few sprigs of lavender. A half second later, a drowsy Jaffir slammed the back of his SUV into a tree, instantly alert again. Spooked and ready to make a run for it, he put his abused vehicle in drive but two gun shots later, he was staring blankly ahead. Macy had finished what Al had started.
Feeling hungry, thirsty, weak and so tired he could barely keep his eyes open, Al struggled to his feet and shuffled back towards the house. Looking towards Macy, who was looking back with fear in her eyes, Al disengaged the suit. He was about to speak when he suddenly realized that the only reason he had been able to stand at all was because of it and collapsed unconscious.
***
It was the dream of being the plane but something was different. There was a sense of anticipation. The lady who was one but two had sent it many gifts when she brought her afterlife planes to join their fates to its own. It had grown as much as it could but there were still too many things missing. It could have begun comprehending the laws it was missing to allow the blossoming of creation but it would need all of its living parts to become one with it which was something it understood to be undesirable.
Al felt he was carrying what the planar will needed but the only way to give it was to give up on leaving the dream. In a flash of understanding, he realized that the colors the key had gathered from the Camdis shard were never meant for him or the other Orisons at all. They were meant for the three potentials that had dwelt within the soul ring. They were a collection of reality laws and were meant to be legacies for his children.
They would live and, upon passing, they would inherit to be reborn as tier four entities with a set of laws waiting to be mastered. Vaguely, he could understand that such a thing had been possible because Keita wasn't all she had appeared to be and a portion of that had remained with the key. He could only guess that whatever she was, or had been, the only clue laid in the voices and visions that clogged her mortal mind to child-like simplicity.
Such a thought lead him down a rabbit hole of other thoughts, such as Rithus' own simplicity when they met. The man had a strong intuition that only became stronger after Orison awakened him as a climber. Other pieces of that puzzle tickled at the edges of his spiritual mind; like Jay's autistic niece, the Kaleidoscope Program and Aurora's reaction to knowing about them.
Any other thoughts along that vein were interrupted by a surging wake of spiritual essence. For a moment, Al's dream self was pulled to observe another deathbed scene. Without knowing how, he recognized the old woman laying in the bed as White's daughter.
Surrounding the bed were Gan and Tait along with a plethora of her descendants, from children to even a couple of great grandchildren. Advanced as she was in age, the only person that she recognized in the room was Gan himself. In her final moments, her rheumy eyes seemed to lock onto Al's presence.
Smiling as a few tears slipped down withered cheeks, she said. "Oh look! Daddy came to fetch me, Father. I'm going to go now, okay?"
Seconds later, as the old woman breathed her last rattling breath, Gan turned towards the point Al was looking from as well. He appeared ready to do something drastic to himself to follow but Tait laid a restraining hand and said, "If you go that way, you'll lose everything and might still not make it."
Before the dream scene ended, Tait added with an emotion thickened voice, "Let's lay Oleander to rest properly first. After that, there will be no unfinished business to hold us here any longer. We will travel our own road to meet Dad again."
A ripple ran through Al's consciousness somewhat akin to a cold chill as Oleander's soul was drawn through a connection with the 'colorless' Al hadn't known existed. As she passed 'through' him, more specifically the mass of 'color' attached to his soul, she pulled almost all of the white mass with her and a part of the colorless as well. The portion of colorless mass her soul had taken, formed an avatar to house her spirit as the white filled it in.
In the moments that followed, many things happened Al couldn't understand. But once the things ordered themselves into cohesiveness, a young woman clad in a radiant white nimbus stood on the plane. She was disoriented and confused until she felt the will of the plane reach out to her and 'explain'.
Oleander looked at the plane around her and said, "I see. The path that was robbed from us is to be restored this way. As it was in the beginning, we have been given a garden to tend. In doing so, we will grow stronger and help Daddy as well."
A slit that was half dark bale fire and half radiant light opened, revealing Noxflora. "Nor will you be alone, sister. I am but a call away and, with time, other siblings may join us."
Noxflora gazed towards Al's point of view. "You are fragmented and are not yet strong enough to observe the use of laws. I will place a veil to protect you from seeing things that may harm you. It will also protect those of us here from the eyes of outsiders."
Confused, Oleander said, "If he is not yet strong enough to observe laws, would our labor not be in vain?"
Half wicked laugh and half warm, Noxflora said, "Setting aside that it benefits ourselves, the will of this plane is capable of observing for him. It was designed to be so by his own spiritual father...
"Fragment who watches us, Zeke is not that man. He is merely that which remains of him, fashioned in his image. That man ceased to be when he closed the loop on his own existence.
"Do not hold Zeke accountable for the actions of 'that one'. Zeke is no more nor less that the true and dutiful friend you know. For what small part he played in the tragedies of Jacob, Zoe, and a few others, he has been forgiven. Please let him know, when and if you meet again. That is not a burden he should have to bear, when those greatest affected do not wish him to."
Trying to communicate in return, Al said, "Can you hear me?"
Noxflora tilted her head. "I cannot fully understand. You desire to ask me a question?"
Trying a different tactic, Al cobbled together a series of pictures and tried sending it that way.
Noxflora nodded. "You have seen Zoe's son in your dream memories. She will be pleased that he is coming into his own power... As for the rest, I know not the fate of the others who were at the muddy place.
"While the connection is still strong, I will inquire the Weird Sisters and Granny Georgia to see what they may divine for you. I do not know if it is wise to aid a fragment or not but I will send some trifles to ease your sufferings as well... Until we meet again, father..."
***
Al came to feeling like his whole being had become loose and unstable. In the next moment he was pelted by mud and stone before a weight landed on him painfully, shortly joined by a second one.
A man's voice said, "I saved the cone!"
The sound of slurping and crunching sounds was interrupted by a second man's voice. "Screw it. Three second rule."
Slurping and crunching resumed close to his other ear.
"You picked that up out of mud and ate it, Roy!?" said the first man.
After removing his own weight off the stack, the equipment specialist said, "It's healing mud. Besides, this is the best damn ice cream I've ever had."
A woman's voice came from nearby. "Adam, was it? Would you mind getting off Al. He's the mature, responsible part of Orison I was talking about... It's going to take him a little to recover from what just happened.
"Remember what you promised me for saving you from the 'space between'. Adam, I'll leave you to explain. Roy, keep this package in your badge until Al's recovered his equilibrium and then give it to him. I'd stay and explain myself but I need to stop Gan and his son from smacking into the protection around this reality and ending tragically."
As Adam removed his weight slowly and a little too handsy for Al's liking, he said in shock, "Gan had kids, like with a woman and everything!? Aaaand she's gone."
Roy said with urgency, "The crystal cores and the mud itself is quickly losing potency. We need to gather it up before this thirsty, essence deprived air ruins it."
Such a statement even galvanized the still disoriented Al to swing his ring around to collect what he could vaguely feel was special material. It was fairly easy to gather the lion's share of it too, since he was ground zero for it's arrival.
From nearby, Al heard Macy say, "These friends of yours from a crazy suit club?-You need to stay right where you are, sir or whatever the hell you are-. Are you going to keep crawling around on the ground scooping up mud and rocks like fruitcake? Put some damn clothes on!"
Embarrassed but still somewhat unable to see well, Al reactivated the suit and said, "I don't know the whole story yet, Macy, but I do sort of know these people. It's fine... You two, explanations can wait. Help her clean up the bodies before one of our neighbors has the police out here, inquiring about the gunshots... How's Myra and Hunter?"
After briefly giving the men directions like it was commonplace to be covering up a crime scene with strangers, she said, "Myra stirred long enough to take a few drinks of water before she crawled back to her room, refusing to listen to me... I don't think she's right in the head yet. Hunter's got a concussion but he's not fighting me about not going to sleep."
"Take some of this mud and put it on them. I know that sounds crazy but it's special. It'll help heal them. I'd do it myself but I can't see that well for some reason," Al said.
"No wonder you hardly ever come upstairs. What you going to put over there?" She asked. Al looked up from his computer and said, "I thought I might put in a pool table and dart board. Maybe a minibar and card table instead. I haven't really decided yet." "Now, stop me if I'm wrong. Are you going to wait and see if Deshawn going snatch up that Mimi? If he do, you going to ask him what he thinks look good over there, aren't you?" the overly sharp woman asked. Avoiding addressing what she was getting at, Al said, "I thought I'd ask him anyway. He has a good eye for comfort and detail." A steely glint in her eye, she said, "See, and that there give you away more than anything. If Hunter wants to hear his-self a ghost, he only got to put that microphone up to your mouth... Why, I bet that little girl upstairs name is the only one on the title of this house... "They ain't seen it yet. If they do, they don't know what it mean. You dying, got someone after you? Why you got to be ready to disappear? Do it got something to do with that key?" He sighed and said, "I don't plan on being gone anytime soon. I just have to be ready... And don't put the cart before the horse on Deshawn and my niece. Just because I haven't stepped in doesn't mean I won't if there's a reason to. That said, I would rest easier if I knew she had a solid guy looking after her. She's not the type to be able to stand on her own. At least, not yet." With a bit of challenge in her eyes, she said, "You think Deshawn's a solid guy?" Al said, "If it was a month ago? No. Now? Yes, I would. Before, he hated his addiction but now he fears it. He has things to lose. He won't have any trouble letting go of that key when he needs to. I believe he'll help Devon let go of it too... Like I said, he used to hate his addiction but now he fears it." The woman tried to laugh but it turned into a few weak sobs before she pulled herself back together quickly. "I think you right... You know, when I first heard what was going on, I thought you was the devil. Whatever you is ain't nothing godly but it ain't the devil neither." As if a weight was lifted from her chest, she took an easy breath and laughed. "If you is, you done got soft in your old age!" Chuckling, Al said, "The only soft thing about me is this last bit of stubborn belly fat. If anyone's the devil in this house, it's you. Always tempting me to go back for seconds. As if I can say no." He was ready to just chuckle and move on with his own affairs when he heard Myra scream too but it was one that transformed into rage. It was a scream that ended abruptly. His heart dropped to his stomach as he bound up the stairs. Quietly, he opened the pantry door and peeked out to see that one man was standing over the two, a thin streak of blood on the side of a baseball bat. He wasn't exactly sure what happened after that because all he could see was red. A shouting woman's voice cut through and told him to quit beating the dead men and get rid of the bodies so she could call an ambulance. Within the red fog, Al realized that his niece was hurt and that knocked him out of his temporary insanity cold. Rushing over to her, he reached out to see that he was covered in a suit, two bullets lodged in the forearm. Putting that discovery to the back of his mind, he quickly checked her out to see that she wasn't breathing right. Her neck was bent an unnatural angle but she was somehow still alive. Carefully, he trickled about half of the better healing potion he had down her throat while slowly straightening her head out. It wasn't necessary. Unlike the ones he or the miasma had made, this one had a touch of faith essence inside and that meant it was capable of fixing things while they healed. She wasn't quite ready to face the waking world yet but physically, there wasn't anything wrong that Al could tell. After corking the rest of the potion and storing it, he checked on Hunter who was looking at the ceiling with glassy, unfocused eyes, a huge knot raising on his head. He ran the most amount of healing he could without rupturing his channels and rubbed in a couple of drops out of the lesser healing potion into the swollen bump before letting a couple more into Hunter's mouth. He said, "Don't call an ambulance. Just keep an eye on them. I need to make sure that there aren't any more people on the property." As soon as he stepped outside, two guns fired simultaneously. One hit off his helmet and the other in his arm, spinning him around. Laying on the front porch, he decided to play possum to see if they would approach. Only one did and that one let off two more into the helmet, making Al's world spin in concussive pain and nausea. Once the man was in reaching distance, he drew back to stomp Al only to have the leg he was standing on sheered off at the thigh. Al had pulled the minor enchanted blade out and swung it as hard as he could in his position. Slipping in arterial spray, and slightly staggering from disorientation, he gave his best try to reach the other man. Getting closer, Al recognized the fat braids. It was Jaffin. As the man slipped back into his SUV, he shot at Al's legs, knocking the unbalanced man back down again. While Jaffin peeled out, sending a spray of dirt, grass and loose gravel flying, Al activated the meager store of essence in his body. Bounding up to his feet, Al took off at a dead sprint, diving and barely catching the man's bumper. For all of a couple of seconds, Al's gloved fingers were sinking into the hatch enough to make hand holds but then started feeling weak. With nearly everything he had left, Al punched the back glass out and started pulling himself into the SUV. A moment later, three consecutive bullets to the visor cracked the helmet and sent Al careening back out to roll on asphalt. If Jaffir had kept going, he'd have been in the clear but the man decided to stop and put the SUV in reverse to run Al over. All in all, it hadn't been a bad idea and if he had succeeded, Al would have most likely died. A gun shot hitting the wheel coming right at his head made Jaffir swerve just enough to miss as Al watched the blown tire warble in slow motion, inches in front of his face. Drawing on the ring, Al laid out the spiraling magic circle while feebly throwing a few sprigs of lavender. A half second later, a drowsy Jaffir slammed the back of his SUV into a tree, instantly alert again. Spooked and ready to make a run for it, he put his abused vehicle in drive but two gun shots later, he was staring blankly ahead. Macy had finished what Al had started. Feeling hungry, thirsty, weak and so tired he could barely keep his eyes open, Al struggled to his feet and shuffled back towards the house. Looking towards Macy, who was looking back with fear in her eyes, Al disengaged the suit. He was about to speak when he suddenly realized that the only reason he had been able to stand at all was because of it and collapsed unconscious.*** It was the dream of being the plane but something was different. There was a sense of anticipation. The lady who was one but two had sent it many gifts when she brought her afterlife planes to join their fates to its own. It had grown as much as it could but there were still too many things missing. It could have begun comprehending the laws it was missing to allow the blossoming of creation but it would need all of its living parts to become one with it which was something it understood to be undesirable. Al felt he was carrying what the planar will needed but the only way to give it was to give up on leaving the dream. In a flash of understanding, he realized that the colors the key had gathered from the Camdis shard were never meant for him or the other Orisons at all. They were meant for the three potentials that had dwelt within the soul ring. They were a collection of reality laws and were meant to be legacies for his children. They would live and, upon passing, they would inherit to be reborn as tier four entities with a set of laws waiting to be mastered. Vaguely, he could understand that such a thing had been possible because Keita wasn't all she had appeared to be and a portion of that had remained with the key. He could only guess that whatever she was, or had been, the only clue laid in the voices and visions that clogged her mortal mind to child-like simplicity. Such a thought lead him down a rabbit hole of other thoughts, such as Rithus' own simplicity when they met. The man had a strong intuition that only became stronger after Orison awakened him as a climber. Other pieces of that puzzle tickled at the edges of his spiritual mind; like Jay's autistic niece, the Kaleidoscope Program and Aurora's reaction to knowing about them. Any other thoughts along that vein were interrupted by a surging wake of spiritual essence. For a moment, Al's dream self was pulled to observe another deathbed scene. Without knowing how, he recognized the old woman laying in the bed as White's daughter. Surrounding the bed were Gan and Tait along with a plethora of her descendants, from children to even a couple of great grandchildren. Advanced as she was in age, the only person that she recognized in the room was Gan himself. In her final moments, her rheumy eyes seemed to lock onto Al's presence. Smiling as a few tears slipped down withered cheeks, she said. "Oh look! Daddy came to fetch me, Father. I'm going to go now, okay?" Seconds later, as the old woman breathed her last rattling breath, Gan turned towards the point Al was looking from as well. He appeared ready to do something drastic to himself to follow but Tait laid a restraining hand and said, "If you go that way, you'll lose everything and might still not make it." Before the dream scene ended, Tait added with an emotion thickened voice, "Let's lay Oleander to rest properly first. After that, there will be no unfinished business to hold us here any longer. We will travel our own road to meet Dad again." A ripple ran through Al's consciousness somewhat akin to a cold chill as Oleander's soul was drawn through a connection with the 'colorless' Al hadn't known existed. As she passed 'through' him, more specifically the mass of 'color' attached to his soul, she pulled almost all of the white mass with her and a part of the colorless as well. The portion of colorless mass her soul had taken, formed an avatar to house her spirit as the white filled it in. In the moments that followed, many things happened Al couldn't understand. But once the things ordered themselves into cohesiveness, a young woman clad in a radiant white nimbus stood on the plane. She was disoriented and confused until she felt the will of the plane reach out to her and 'explain'. Oleander looked at the plane around her and said, "I see. The path that was robbed from us is to be restored this way. As it was in the beginning, we have been given a garden to tend. In doing so, we will grow stronger and help Daddy as well." A slit that was half dark bale fire and half radiant light opened, revealing Noxflora. "Nor will you be alone, sister. I am but a call away and, with time, other siblings may join us." Noxflora gazed towards Al's point of view. "You are fragmented and are not yet strong enough to observe the use of laws. I will place a veil to protect you from seeing things that may harm you. It will also protect those of us here from the eyes of outsiders." Confused, Oleander said, "If he is not yet strong enough to observe laws, would our labor not be in vain?" Half wicked laugh and half warm, Noxflora said, "Setting aside that it benefits ourselves, the will of this plane is capable of observing for him. It was designed to be so by his own spiritual father... "Fragment who watches us, Zeke is not that man. He is merely that which remains of him, fashioned in his image. That man ceased to be when he closed the loop on his own existence. "Do not hold Zeke accountable for the actions of 'that one'. Zeke is no more nor less that the true and dutiful friend you know. For what small part he played in the tragedies of Jacob, Zoe, and a few others, he has been forgiven. Please let him know, when and if you meet again. That is not a burden he should have to bear, when those greatest affected do not wish him to." Trying to communicate in return, Al said, "Can you hear me?" Noxflora tilted her head. "I cannot fully understand. You desire to ask me a question?" Trying a different tactic, Al cobbled together a series of pictures and tried sending it that way. Noxflora nodded. "You have seen Zoe's son in your dream memories. She will be pleased that he is coming into his own power... As for the rest, I know not the fate of the others who were at the muddy place. "While the connection is still strong, I will inquire the Weird Sisters and Granny Georgia to see what they may divine for you. I do not know if it is wise to aid a fragment or not but I will send some trifles to ease your sufferings as well... Until we meet again, father..."*** Al came to feeling like his whole being had become loose and unstable. In the next moment he was pelted by mud and stone before a weight landed on him painfully, shortly joined by a second one. A man's voice said, "I saved the cone!" The sound of slurping and crunching sounds was interrupted by a second man's voice. "Screw it. Three second rule." Slurping and crunching resumed close to his other ear. "You picked that up out of mud and ate it, Roy!?" said the first man. After removing his own weight off the stack, the equipment specialist said, "It's healing mud. Besides, this is the best damn ice cream I've ever had." A woman's voice came from nearby. "Adam, was it? Would you mind getting off Al. He's the mature, responsible part of Orison I was talking about... It's going to take him a little to recover from what just happened. "Remember what you promised me for saving you from the 'space between'. Adam, I'll leave you to explain. Roy, keep this package in your badge until Al's recovered his equilibrium and then give it to him. I'd stay and explain myself but I need to stop Gan and his son from smacking into the protection around this reality and ending tragically." As Adam removed his weight slowly and a little too handsy for Al's liking, he said in shock, "Gan had kids, like with a woman and everything!? Aaaand she's gone." Roy said with urgency, "The crystal cores and the mud itself is quickly losing potency. We need to gather it up before this thirsty, essence deprived air ruins it." Such a statement even galvanized the still disoriented Al to swing his ring around to collect what he could vaguely feel was special material. It was fairly easy to gather the lion's share of it too, since he was ground zero for it's arrival. From nearby, Al heard Macy say, "These friends of yours from a crazy suit club?-You need to stay right where you are, sir or whatever the hell you are-. Are you going to keep crawling around on the ground scooping up mud and rocks like fruitcake? Put some damn clothes on!" Embarrassed but still somewhat unable to see well, Al reactivated the suit and said, "I don't know the whole story yet, Macy, but I do sort of know these people. It's fine... You two, explanations can wait. Help her clean up the bodies before one of our neighbors has the police out here, inquiring about the gunshots... How's Myra and Hunter?" After briefly giving the men directions like it was commonplace to be covering up a crime scene with strangers, she said, "Myra stirred long enough to take a few drinks of water before she crawled back to her room, refusing to listen to me... I don't think she's right in the head yet. Hunter's got a concussion but he's not fighting me about not going to sleep." "Take some of this mud and put it on them. I know that sounds crazy but it's special. It'll help heal them. I'd do it myself but I can't see that well for some reason," Al said.
