by D. D. Miers
I stood up and tried doors until I found one that led to endless darkness. I chucked a decorative sphere into it experimentally, and watched it fall until it vanished from sight, never hitting a bottom.
"So, what's the lesson?" I asked the darkness. "To give up trying to be in control? Or to stop pretending I'm in control and actually do something? Or was the lesson about fear of the unknown the whole time?"
There was no answer.
"You know, this would be much more effective talk-therapy if you actually talked," I said, dryly, and took a deep breath, extending a foot out into the darkness.
"You got there on your own eventually," the bronze door knocker said, just as I let go of the doorframe and plummeted into the abyss.
Chapter 8
I didn't so much land as stop falling. I crashed down at terminal velocity to stand somewhere else in less than the time it took to blink. At first, I thought I was back in my infinite void headspace and the door had just dumped me out where I'd started, which seemed in character.
But this was not my space. I only needed to be there a moment to realize it. It was like standing in a room that has been perfectly styled to look like your bedroom, but you knew it was a fake. Except in this case the bedrooms were both infinite, featureless, black voids. Something was wrong. Off. Unwelcoming. I wandered farther into it, anyway. I'd decided to stop being passive and afraid of the unknown. I walked into a weird void in my magic coma dream, knowing exactly nothing except that this place didn't want to be here, and somewhere in this void, my dog waited for me to come save it.
I hadn't gone far before I saw the mist. Little curls of translucent white fog slipped by my feet and past my shoulders, shimmering iridescent in the nonlight of this nonplace. Like fog, the wisps floated distinct from one another, not flowing together or forming a big fog bank. They avoided me, flowing around me like a rock in a stream. Curious, I reached toward one. My fingers brushed it, and I felt the same electric buzz as when I touched Cole, and a flicker of emotion. Then the wisp darted away from me like a fish. Well that was interesting. I grabbed for another one, my fingers slipping through the trailing fog of its tail for just a second as it dodged me. Another glimmer of foreign feeling washed over me, an alien sensation of joy, remote and dull.
Grabbing these things was probably a bad idea, but I pushed the worries away. These were someone else's feelings, someone else's memories, which I was somehow accessing while trapped in a coma. That was amazing and deserved a little investigation. Maybe I'd accidentally followed the connection Julius had made between me and Cole into Cole's mind? I wouldn't be able to tell until I got my hands on one of those memory wisps.
I ran after the things like a kid chasing butterflies. They were agile and had no interest in being caught by me, scattering like shoals of fish from my clumsy charges. But I was determined and incapable of getting tired.
Finally, my hand passed through the center of one, and all at once the memory washed over me like a wave. It was so much stronger than the memories Cole had shared with me before. It snagged me like a riptide and dragged me down into it all at once, so fast I didn't even have time to realize what was happening. One moment I was me, and then I was not.
I stood in the grass with bare feet, and I was much lower to the ground than I was used to. There were trees in the distance. I knew I'd just been talking to someone, but there was no sign of the person now. But I had a good stick and enjoyed myself, running through the high grass hitting the tall spikes of goldenrod and watching them shower pollen in little yellow explosions. It was summer. The sky was blue. I was full of a deep, simple contentment.
Crows cawed, circling above, and I heard the buzzing of flies. I investigated, moving the grass aside with my stick. It was a dead fox, its fur more brown than red. I didn't flinch when I saw it. I just stared, curious, and poked it with my stick. It didn't move. Something whispered in my ear, words I knew this person understood, but which I, carried along and merely observing, did not.
I poked the fox with the stick again and it blinked its eyes and sat up. It scratched itself, shook itself out, and then ran off into the grass. I smiled, watching it go. Above me, one of the crows dropped out of the sky.
There was a faint voice in the distance, someone calling my name. I turned toward it and saw a faint line of smoke above the trees.
The memory slammed shut all at once, like a door in my face, with so much force that it threw me backward. The darkness rushed around me, violent, spitting me out.
I landed hard and only realized after a few seconds that I was back in my own head, with the familiar darkness. No wisps, no door. I was alone.
I jumped at the sound of a bark and Mort ran to me.
"Mort!" I said excitedly, throwing my arms around the dog as he jumped on me. "You're all right! You asshole, I thought you were stuck in the demon door thing!"
Mort tried to lick my face and I pushed him off, laughing, to scratch his ears. He flopped over, as much in my lap as he could manage considering how big he was, and I pet him as I tried to figure out what I'd just seen. Was that really a memory? And whose? All I'd been able to tell was that I was some kind of kid, playing in the woods. Not a lot to go on. The name hadn't been clear enough to understand.
But the kid had definitely resurrected that fox. Not reanimated as a zombie. A True Resurrection. Almost without even trying. Which is why it couldn't really be a memory, right? It had to have been a dream or something. Maybe it was even my dream. That would make more sense than me just randomly gaining access to someone else's memories.
Mort gave a happy, heavy, doggy sigh. This place was just weird. I settled down more comfortably with Mort on my lap, to do the only thing I could. Wait and think.
Fortunately, I didn't have to wait too long before I a change in the atmosphere caused me to sit up from where I'd been sprawled on the ground. Cole materialized.
"Finally!" I said, shoving Mort off of me and scrambling to my feet. "The weirdest thing happened and—wait, first tell me what's going on out there. How's Ethan? How are the Curators and my aunt? Has Julius made any progress on breaking the spell?"
"Sorry," Cole said with obvious reluctance. "There's not much to report. Ethan's behaving, mostly. He pretty much stays right next to you. The dog is the only one that leaves you less. Your aunt is fine, just complaining about being cooped up. The Curators are recovering. Fiona has woken up. Might have some lasting damage, we aren't sure yet. Uther is back on his feet and goading Julius into a fight every five minutes. Julius has the patience of a saint, fortunately. Plus, we think Uther might have burned his magic out saving everyone. It's pretty much a coin toss whether it'll come back. The good news is that the bar is infinite, so there's plenty of room for everyone. The bad news is that between running the bar and dealing with all these guests, not to mention Gilfaethwy, Julius hasn't had a ton of spare time to work on breaking the spell on you."
"Fair," I said, trying not to let it bother me that I'd been relegated to the back-burner. "I mean, I guess I am technically safe in here or whatever. Has there been any sign of Aethon? Has he wrecked anything else?"
Cole shook his head. "No, nothing so far. Julius is confident he can't track us here and couldn't reach us past the wards, even if he did. So he's lashing out at anything we care about instead."
Mort interrupted him by butting his head against Cole's hip. Cole patted him absentmindedly.
"I'm not surprised you're still in here," he muttered, scratching Mort's ears. "Maybe you're some kind of familiar?"
"I guess it's a good thing your parents aren't in the area," I said, more worried about Aethon than Mort's ambiguous existence. "Anyway. What weird thing happened?"
I gave him a quick breakdown on what had happened, which turned out to include explaining about the first time I'd gone through the Blue Demon Door, which I hadn't had time to tell him and Ethan about yet.
"That wasn't one of your memories, was it?" I asked as I finished describing the vi
sion of the kid and the dead fox, touching his hand to share what I'd seen. We'd settled down on the floor again, Mort lying beside me.
"Definitely not," he said. "My family lives in the Midwest. There weren't any forests anywhere near where I grew up. Also, if I were capable of a True Resurrection like that, trust me, I would know."
I frowned, my leading theory out the window.
"Do you think it was just something I dreamed?" I asked.
"I'm not sure," Cole said with a frown. "It seemed real. But we don't know anything about what this is or how it works. It could be anything."
I sighed, a little frustrated by the lack of answers.
"I'll bring it up with Julius," Cole offered. "It might be a clue to getting you out of here."
"That'd be great," I said. "I'm starting to lose it. I can only sit here in the dark thinking about what Aethon is planning for so long, you know?"
"I actually have something that might help," Cole said. "I figured we could continue your training in here, since we're basically being forced into downtime for who knows how long."
"But I can't access my magic," I reminded him. "And even if I could, it's not like I can really practice in here."
"Maybe not," Cole shrugged. "But you can at least study the basics and some of the elements of general wizardry that augment necromancy well."
"You're going to bring textbooks in here?" I asked, raising an eyebrow.
"No, but I've read the books," Cole explained. "I remember them. And this place lets you access my memories in detail. So you can just experience my studying like you lived it yourself."
"Convenient," I said, not sure if it was.
"If we're going to stand a chance against Aethon, you need to know how to defend yourself," Cole said. “Considering I got my ass handed to me by him, you need to be at least as good as I am."
He offered me his hand and, a little nervous, I took it.
In the memory, I sat alone in a cheap motel room that smelled like bleach and mold. I was maybe seventeen. There was a storm raging outside, almost drowning out the people arguing in the next room over. I—rather Cole—was hungry, and anxious about where he would be sleeping tomorrow night when he ran out of money for this room. The small, bolted=down TV played the local weather channel's continuous coverage of a hurricane currently making landfall. He had a book in my lap. As the wind rattled the motel room's windows, he braced myself against the headboard and opened it.
I tried to focus on the text and not the undercurrent of Cole’s thoughts, not wanting to be invasive, but it was difficult considering even Cole, in the memory, struggled to focus. The shelters were going to be full with the storm landing. He'd never get a space. This was going to be a bad one, according to the TV. Not something he wanted to weather without a roof over his head, which was why he'd gotten this room. But the storm had slowed down and he didn't have enough for a second night. He could call that guy, but the last time Cole had let that guy do him a favor he'd—Cole shut down this line of thinking so fast, it registered to me as nothing but white noise.
"This isn't working," Cole muttered, thoughts tense with shame and embarrassment and a guarded fear of pity or judgment. "Let me try another memory. Stop focusing on what's going on around you. Just read the book."
"Sorry," I said. "I'll do my best."
Another memory replaced the first.
I was lying in the back seat of a car. It was night. There was someone snoring in the front seat. I had a cramp in my back and my eyes itched with tiredness. I held a book and a cheap pocket flashlight I'd lifted from a gas station.
"In the field of micro-necromancy," I read, "there is considerable debate on the distinction between apoptosis, autophagy, and necrosis. In effect, if a necromancer induces mass cell death without external trauma, might it be categorized as PCD, necrosis, or even necroptosis? Honeycutt's dissertation claimed if mitotic catastrophe due to exposure to ionizing radiation is attributed to the radiation and not to a spontaneous rewriting of the cell's programming, then no act of necromancy could fall under the label of PCD, and thus apoptosis or autophagy. St. Ives, however, disputed this on the grounds that necromancy is theorized to have direct influence on RNA and telomeres and may actually be reprogramming the cells, making PCD a valid terminology. Gregori, instead, suggested a biochemical influence on cell shrinkage, nuclear fragmentation, and chromatin condensation."
My eyes glazed over and I shook my head.
"Um, this might be a bit advanced for me," I suggested, frowning.
"It's just talking about what to label cell death caused by necromancy."
"I got that, sort of, but I don't know most of the terms they're using, or why it matters? Isn't this semantics?"
"Yeah, but it's about establishing a language for talking about these kind of things. You can't discuss how necromancy affects microscopic life without deciding on terminology to describe it."
"That's great and all, but they've already got half of that terminology figured out here, and I don't understand any of it. I mean, what does it matter whether . . .uh," I paused to read back over the paragraph again, squinting, "whether we consider necromancy to be . . .um, what's PCD?"
"Programmed cell death."
"Ah, that makes sense. What does it matter whether we consider necromancy to be PCD or external trauma? It's magic. It just does stuff."
"That's the thing," Cole said impatiently. "It doesn't just do stuff. There's a scientific underpinning to how it works."
"You're telling me necromancy is science, not magic?"
"No, it is magic, it's just . . . Okay. Okay, so this book is no good. Give me a minute, I'll think of another one."
He released my hand to consider what to try next, leaving me puzzling over my unanswered question.
"Well, what's the first book you read on necromancy?" I asked him. "I'm betting it wasn't this one."
Strange anxiety washed off of Cole's thoughts. He looked away from me, evasive.
"You've already got the basics, you don't need it. Try this one."
He tried three more memories where either the book was about advanced techniques I couldn't begin to understand, or his surroundings were too distracting to focus.
"Just start at the beginning," I begged him. "If it's too simple, we can skip forward!"
He growled in frustration, rubbing the heels of his palms against his eyes.
"You're right," he gave in. "This isn't working. But . . ."
He fidgeted. "Listen," he finally said in a low, uneasy voice. "I told you I had a rebellious stage. I didn't have anyone like your aunt around to help me learn to control my powers. I had to figure it out on my own and I wasn't good at it. My parents didn't have any magic and didn't want to teach me any. They thought if I never learned anything and ignored it, I could be normal. But it doesn't work that way. You know it doesn't work that way."
I nodded. I'd been there.
He rubbed his hands together, cracked his knuckles, swallowed.
"You were a goth kid, right?" he said, eyeing my current outfit.
"I like to think I've evolved into a classy goth adult, but yeah," I said a little self-consciously, smoothing my dress.
"You ever get into the occult stuff?" he asked.
I shrugged a little, embarrassed.
"Yeah, a bit," I admitted. "I know, it's a stereotype. People were so convinced I was doing it anyway that I kind of ended up looking into it to spite them. "
"I'm guessing you never did much with it, though," he said.
"Some dumb rituals in middle school," I said, with a shrug. "Freshman year of high school I finally made a few friends and we broke out a Ouija board at a party. I was a little too good at it. The other girls went home early and never talked to me again. I stopped messing with it after that."
"You got lucky," Cole said. "Nonmagical kids can mess with that stuff and usually be fine. But people like you and me, it really responds to. It works, even when it's badly written garbage from the in
ternet."
"What happened?" I asked, figuring he spoke from experience.
"Long story short," Cole said with a sigh, "my parents didn't want to teach me anything about my powers. So I summoned a demon to teach me instead."
I waited in confused silence for him to explain the joke. When no punch line followed, I blinked in confusion.
"You summoned a demon."
"Yeah."
"A real, actual demon."
"In certain occult traditions, demons are teachers who can instruct you in esoteric skills and magic."
"You just summoned one?"
"Yeah."
"What the fuck, Cole?"
Cole rubbed his face again. "I was a pissed-off edgy teenager googling demonology, and I found a shitty ritual written by some other pissed-off edgy teenager. I ran naked, cutting in the woods with optional candles for ambiance, basically, not really expecting anything to happen, but we're magic so it worked. I summoned something claiming to be Gaap, goetic demon prince and teacher of philosophy and the liberal sciences."
I snorted and Cole gave me a sour look.
"The demon is a liberal arts teacher?" I asked, not trying to hide my grin. "Does he have a page on rate-my-professor?"
Cole looked slightly frustrated. But the idea of Cole naked in the woods learning grammar from a demon was too hilarious.
"The point is," Cole said through clenched teeth, "that's where I started learning about necromancy. Through Gaap and demons like him, I learned how to trade with them or trick them in return for knowledge or for specific books."
"How do you trick a demon?" I asked, mystified.
"Mostly by pissing them off," Cole said. "They're a lot like Fae. They have to obey certain rules. The difference is you set up the rules when you summon them. I got really lucky. The ritual I used had enough basic protections to keep anything from disemboweling me for fun, and Gaap was fairly chill for a demon. Demons basically come in three varieties. The ones who want to fuck you up violently immediately, the ones who want to fuck you up as soon as you get annoying, and the ones who want to fuck you up in the slowest, most torturous way possible through a long, convoluted plan ending with you fucking yourself up through minimal interference from them. Gaap was one of the third kind."
