But a possessed body gives their minds a physical form, which can be read. But because demons have completely alien thought processes and the merging of their mind with the possessed brain is imperfect, it’s usually all sorts of static. Demons can’t mask their thoughts in a possessed body since they don’t have full organic control of the brain. But it doesn’t matter most of the time since the average witch can’t make sense of the jumbled mess anyway. A trained psion can eventually cut through all of the static with concentration. But that isn’t what Houston did. He scanned his surface thoughts like he was a teenage girl daydreaming about Justin Beiber. That’s Rank Three Psionic ability. At the least.
“I’m sorry I startled you,” says Houston. “I had to know what you were up to.”
“Look, I would never hurt the Brennons. They like me.”
“They think you are their son,” I say.
“And that doesn’t hurt them! It makes them happy. Their real son has been nothing but a source of pain and grief for them for decades. They are in their senior years now and have what they always wanted. And I don’t even have a pact with them. This is a completely symbiotic relationship. If you banish me they will be devastated. I don’t think Mr. Brennon’s heart could handle finding his son’s corpse.”
“This is the part that worries me, Lee. Let’s pretend for a minute I believe you. You sincerely care about the Brennons and this is all a big 80’s family sitcom. What happens when the Brennons die?”
“I don’t have a pact with them.”
“I heard you the first time. But that doesn’t answer the question. Five, ten, fifteen years in a human body. You aren’t going to go back to the Outer Planes quietly like this was some summer vacation.”
“Please. I’m not hurting anyone. It’s not like you can’t find me whenever you want with this…thing you put on me.”
“That’s not really enough.”
“Nancy, maybe it should be,” says Houston.
“I really wish it could be.”
Lee’s cell phone ring. He fumbles with it for a minute. “Hey, Mom…Uh huh…Yeah, um, having lunch with some friends…Um, no not like that…Actually, it’s Dr. Werlock…Yeah, yeah. The lady Dad introduced us to…uh hum…Okay. I’ll be home soon…Love you too. Bye.” He hangs up the phone. “It’s the first time I’ve been away from the house alone since this started. She was worried I was getting in trouble.” He throws some money on the table to pay for his drink and leaves without another word.
July 20th
“You’re shitting me, right?” asks Steve. “It’s feeding its vice by being…nice?”
“Such language is unbecoming one of your position, Justicar,” says Archmage Lawrence.
“My apologies, Archmage.”
We’re sitting in Archmage Lawrence’s office discussing my meeting with Lee.
“Was Houston able to confirm whether or not the lemure knew anything about Justicar Warren’s death?” asked the Archmage.
“What would make you think that, sir?” asks Steve.
“The fact that Justicar Warren’s body was taken to Lansfield on the 10th and here we are ten days later and still no funeral. I may not be a Justicar, young man, but I did not become Archmage of one of the most powerful guilds of the College of Evocation by being inobservant.”
“We didn’t discuss that issue specifically so there was nothing in his surface thoughts,” I replied. “But based on what Houston did pick up, the lemure wouldn’t have had the opportunity even if it did have the inclination. He’s spent all of his time with his parents. It doesn’t have any ranged powers; otherwise it wouldn’t have risked direct contact with a Demonologist.”
The Archmage looks back and forth at Steve and I. “You two both look like you were just sent to the principal’s office. So what is it the Council has not informed me about this time?”
“It’s a Justicar matter,” says Steve.
“Oh, I see. Then I suppose congratulations are in order. I wasn’t aware Nancy was made a Justicar.”
“Huh? What?” I ask.
“She’s not a Justicar.”
“But she seems to know about this Justicar business.”
“It’s need-to-know. And as I had asked her to look into the lemure situation for me, she was informed of certain things on a need-to-know basis. If the lemure was violent, she needed to know.”
“A fair enough answer. And perhaps more than I should expect to get.” The Archmage gets up and walks over to his bookshelf. He removes one of the tomes and flips open to a section. He scans the page for a moment. “It would have been extremely difficult for a lemure to dispose of a Justicar. Even if we were talking about a Rank Two or Rank One. Not in its current state.”
“Our primary concern had been that because the host was a drug addict, there could have been some morphic aptitude that poisoned Sonny and triggered the heart attack,” says Steve. “But the doctors didn’t find any traces of narcotics, and it is doubtful this specific lemure could have pulled off both poisoning Sonny and then removing the toxin from his body afterwards.”
“Agreed. This one doesn’t appear to be more than a Rank Three. What is intriguing though is the personamorphication at work. From what you have said, Nancy, it is having a hard time differentiating itself from the host body.”
“He kept referring to the Brennons as his parents. Houston said his surface thoughts were picking up guilt from Lee’s past actions. Like he was personally responsible for the things Lee did and feels bad about them.”
“And according to Houston, he genuinely cares about the Brennons. Interesting.” The Archmage goes back to the book and scans a few more pages. “He has no pact to keep him whole. Instead of consuming the host body, the body has healed. He must be developing an anchor.”
“And if we don’t stop it, in a few years we won’t be able to just exorcise him.”
“Depending on the final nature of the anchor, perhaps exorcism won’t be necessary.”
“What are you getting at?” I ask.
“We focus so much on the dangerous nature of demons that we sometimes forget the fact that they are, like everything else, sentient beings with their own needs.”
“I think there is enough historical evidence to justify that focus,” says Steve.
“And yet we have a Gatekeeper that protects the hall. How many witches have imps and quasits as familiars who serve faithfully? How many of the tomes in our library are the result of mutually beneficial pacts between witches and demons?”
“And how many of those pacts ended in the witch dead?” says Steve.
“You sound like a Justicar.” The Archmage closes the book and puts it back on the shelf. “So, what to do about our lemure?”
“We have a tag on him,” I say. “Maybe for now just observe? Keep an eye on him?”
“Right now he is a low priority for the Justicars.”
“And this could be an interesting opportunity to observe personamorphication in an uncontrolled environment. It will be interesting to watch how his anchor develops.”
“Well, if that is settled, I have other matters to attend to,” Steve stands up and stretches.
“Of course. Oh, Nancy, before you leave. I have Houston’s certificate. No point mailing it if you are here. Let me just go get it.”
Steve and the Archmage leave the office. A few minutes later, he returns and hands me a red envelope. “Sit down,” he says. “We aren’t exactly done.”
“I need to get back to the shop.”
“Nancy, we need to talk about your apprentice.” I sit down. “Open the envelope.”
I open the envelope. Inside are Houston’s Rank Five Demonology certificate and a copy of an application for credentials directed to the College of Psionics. “This is an application for apprenticeship for Houston’s cousin April? The gift skipped her mother?”
“Keep reading.”
“This application is dated three months before her death.”
“Emergency a
pplication. She claimed her mother was going to kill her and she needed to be removed from the house.”
“Also seeking magical treatment for her leukemia. Where did you get this?”
“I have friends in the College of Technomancy who owe me some favors. They were happy to pay off those debts. We’ll leave it at that.”
“So April was a psion? How did she even know how to get through to the College? There is no sponsor name on the application? Did Ruth…”
“I would love to be able to answer that question, Nancy. But we have been unable to reach April across the Veil to get clarification.”
“We?”
“When I couldn’t find the child myself, we conducted a full summoning.”
“And she resisted the summoning?”
“No. We would have felt it if she was resisting. She isn’t there.”
“She has to be there. She’s dead.”
“I’m not going to ask you to betray a trust. I know there is something critical going on with the Justicars. The circumstances of some of their recent deaths have been peculiar to say the least. But whatever is going on with the Justicars is not the only thing the Council is keeping secret.”
“You have spoken to the Vice-Chancellor?”
“I know about the Inquest. Yes. From what we’ve pieced together, originally the Inquest was rather exciting. The initial hypothesis was that Grande Madame Marchan had achieved ascension or was close to it. Such a thing would have been an extraordinary event in our time. But there may be something more…malignant at work.”
“What?”
“We don’t know. We can’t ask directly because we’re not supposed to know. But we need someone closer to the College of Psionics. A foothold. I want Houston to apply for the Rank Five Psionic trials.”
“He’s my apprentice!”
“Of course he is. And nobody is challenging that. In fact, it is vitally important that he stay your apprentice as far as we are concerned. This is why we want him to seem to be doing this voluntarily before someone tries to push the issue. Most witches with latent psionic ability dual-specialize. Nobody will think it is unusual for him to want Rank in his mother’s college.”
“You’re trying to bait the Lord Advocate of the Eighth?”
“The Nine may be behind the Inquest, but I suspect the Lord Advocate of the Eighth is the driving force. He’s taken an interest in Houston and pushed for his advanced placement.”
“I don’t like this. Houston is not ready to deal directly with the Lord Advocate if it comes to that.”
“Houston casually scanned the mind of a skinwalking lemure. And he outscored you by two points on his trials,” he adds with a wink.
“I don’t see how two points makes him ready for spy games!”
“If your apprentice is going to be dual-specializing, his patron needs to be of sufficient rank herself.”
“I’m Rank Three. I’m rusty, sure. But I haven’t lost my Rank.”
“You need to be Rank Two.”
“I don’t have interest in…”
“Of course you do. Your mother was Rank Two. You feel guilty for having abandoned the craft all of these years and you want to make her proud.”
“Wait, did my mother put you up to this?”
“No, but that is what we want everyone to think so nobody suspects what we are up to.”
“Why is it so important for me to be Rank Two?”
“As a Rank Three, you have a great deal of respect, but no actual cover from the Nine. As Rank Two, it puts restrictions on how and when the Nine can directly contact you. Checks and balances. You’d no longer be arm’s length from the Lord Advocate whenever he decided to interject himself into your affairs.”
“I’m not ready for the Rank Two trials! I haven’t even completed all of my recertifications!”
“You’re ready. You have to be ready. We don’t have many other options.”
“Fine. Fine.”
“You’ll have to put your application in to the Magus. If you put it in with the Chancellor directly it may set off alarms. But the Magus has no reason to deny your application. He’ll do what he always does. He’ll confer with the Vice-Chancellor to determine a good trial for you.”
“And you and the Vice-Chancellor already have a trial in mind, I assume? Since you have all planned this behind my back.”
“Indeed. You are going to bind a certain lemure as a servitor.”
‘Til Death Do Us Part
July 22nd
“Nancy, it isn’t like this is a small neighborhood,” says Mom. “For goodness sake, it took me two months just to find your father. Lot of good that did me.”
“What’s wrong with Dad?”
“Nothing’s wrong with him, honey. Just he doesn’t remember. That’s normal for normal people.”
Mom is trying to sound matter-of-fact about it, but it’s obvious she is upset. I guess we both knew that he wouldn’t remember her after he died. I’m kinda surprised Mom even managed to find him. Witches are the only humans that can chose to stay in the astral plane after death. We retain our consciousness in the afterlife. So sometimes witches hang close to the material plane to keep an eye on their children or to protect a particularly sacred area. I’d be lying if I said that all dead witches were benevolent, however. There is a reason Evokers learn wards against spirits. Not all dead witches have good intentions when milling around the afterlife.
Most folks when they die go to one of the divine domains that fill the astral plane. The how and why of who ends up where is a matter for debate for those who study such things. Mom always said that people end up where they are supposed to end up based on who they were as people. Not really Heaven or Hell per se, because for the most part there isn’t any real punishment or reward involved. Just more that like things attract like. So peaceful people end up in peaceful realms while violent people end up on violent ones.
The College of Divinities has star charts that allegedly even pinpoint the exact locations of various divine domains. So I guess if one wanted to, and possessed the right abilities, you could plot a course for Olympus or Asgard or the Two Fields and so on.
But the point is, when you die, you pass on into another kind of world entirely. And you live there so to speak. But the nature of that life is complete foreign to normal life. And most people don’t remember normal life at all when they are there.
I want to ask Mom what Dad looked like and what he was doing. Or even where she found him. But I think it would be too painful for her to continue. And besides, there are more pressing issues.
I recently found out that Houston’s dead cousin, April, had been a Psion. She had died as a teenager, but apparently knew of her magical talents and had sought an emergency application with the College of Psionics. She died of complications from her leukemia before the application was approved. That in and of itself wasn’t the strangest part. We know hereditary magic runs in that family (even if it is somewhat sporadic). No the weird part is that nobody can find her after her death. A Circle of five Rank Two and Three Evokers attempted to summon her and she didn’t show up.
I asked Mom to see if she could make some inquiries. But these things aren’t fast.
“So did you send in your application for Rank Two to the Magus?” asks Mom.
“Yeah, sent it off today.”
“I’m so excited!”
“Mom, I explained to you why I’m doing this.”
“The reason for it doesn’t matter to me. The end result makes me happy.” Mom pauses for a moment. “And Nanna is thrilled, too.”
“You told Nanna?”
“Of course I did! What would make you think I wouldn’t?”
“Mom!”
“My daughter is going to be a Rank Two Warlock. My son is giving me another grandchild. I’m just tickled pink.”
“I’m glad you are happy.”
“I have to go, sweetheart. I have a committee meeting. Let me know how things work out with the lemure.�
�
“Yeah. It’ll be great. Wait…a meeting?”
“Bye, honey.”
Committee meeting? What kind of committees do they have in the afterlife?
I leave my office to find Anastasia chatting with a customer about the benefits of crystal therapy. She upsells the woman to the Lady of the Lake Advanced Crystal Collection, which is not an inexpensive set. She then puts a flyer in the bag and says “Come back next Monday for our free tarot readings!”
“Um, what free tarot readings?” I ask after the woman leaves. I pick up the flyer to see a promotion for Anastasia’s tarot readings, now offered for free every Monday evening…with purchase of $25 or more.
“I got a deck!”
“Is it blue?” That comes out much snarkier than I intended, but she doesn’t seem to notice.
“No it has all kinds of colors on it.”
“When did I approve this?”
“I trying to help build brand loyalty and increase cart size.”
“You are doing what?”
“My mom started to take these business courses at the community college, because her employer has a new program where they pay so much toward continuing education credits, and I was looking through some of her stuff, and it talks about how to help grow a business, and I thought I would try it out to help!”
“Ahhh. I see. I still don’t remember approving you doing tarot card readings.”
“Well, I got a deck. And I need to practice more. I already practiced on all of my friends and I was sooooooo accurate they were all freaked out about it.”
“Okay, well, as long as you aren’t charging. But in the future before you act on your mom’s homework talk to me?”
Anastasia nods and turns her attention to a customer.
“Where’s Houston?” I ask.
“He’s having lunch with his Aunt.”
“He’s doing…what?”
“He said he was meeting his Aunt for lunch. I think it is about the family tree project he was working on. He wanted to show her some stuff.”
“Did he say where they were going?”
“Is he in trouble, again?”
Houston and I had a long discussion yesterday about, well, everything. His cousin April. His mother’s threats. The suspicions of the Vice-Chancellor and Archmage. I had to get it all out in the open with him because he needs to know what he is walking into. It really wasn’t much of a conversation. Mostly me rambling and him occasionally nodding and saying “Okay.”
nancy werlock's diary s01 - episodes 1-7 Page 15
