Everyone was always so dour about the whole thing. 'We lost the war' wasn't really what got people down, though. It was usually 'my girlfriend/boyfriend/heteroplatonic life partner/cabalmate/mentor/apprentice died in a Technocrat/Nephandi attack and I have this permanent scar/limp/paradox/insanity/weird itch in that spot on my back I can never reach/all of the above'. Everyone had something to be sad about, even and perhaps especially the bright and bubbly ones. Everyone had something to be angry about, even and especially the most forgiving and gentle. Everyone had lost something, even and especially the ones who acted the least concerned about it.
She doesn't know who came up with the idea of restarting it all, the ages-old 'war' between the so-called reality deviants and the so-called Big Brother, just as she doesn't know who decided to start calling it a war. It was all very Catholic, she thought, this idea of two massive forces, one calling itself Good and insisting that the other was Evil, both sides trying to grab up as many souls as they could, either through passionate conversion or merely keeping people passive. And if you follow that analogy, then the magi really are Lucifer, trying to get humanity to eat the fruit, wake up, and make their own clothes, grow their own food, be wise, and the New World Order is the God who wants to make them a pretty pretty garden where they can be stupid naked babies forever.
However, she is not Catholic, and if you ask her, the choice isn't Good or Evil, it's Active or Passive. Good and Evil gets way more specific. There are evil magi. There are good Technocrats. But you won't hear her saying so to most people she knows. Awakened people, that is. You'd think with a name like that they'd be more open-minded, but you know people. Give them an idea, even a grand one like 'you can change reality itself through application of your will', and they'll still shove everything else to the side, narrow their field, gun it like they're at NASCAR, and eventually spin out and flip over and catch fire.
That is Eileen Cotton's vision of hubris. Mentally. Visually, actually-visually, like what her physical eyes are seeing and translating into her brain, her vision is seeing the wide straw of her strawberry milkshake, which is half in the glass and half in her belly now. Truth be told, recognizing that there is no 'empty', that neither portion is 'gone', makes her imagine what's happening chemically to the half in her belly, which is sort of fascinating and yet very very gross, but that only makes the portion still in the styrofoam cup all the more appealing, so she drinks more until the cold makes her head hurt. This reaction, too, is as fascinating as it is painful. The human body is so quirky.
Palm to brow, grimacing, Eileen waits for the headache to pass.
The Chicago Council was the one who set the meeting place and assigned her to be there. They don't like giving apprentices anything to do with this whole 'Cause' business, because there's so very little that apprentices can do and so very much trouble they can get into. It's mostly the disciples and adepts who have real work cut out for them. They use initiates to help out. It's hard to get cabals to work with other cabals, but if you can get a cabal to do something? Awesome. It's the lone rangers that prove more a challenge. When all this started (re-started), when people who had been apprentices twelve years ago and were now Masters started coming to major cities while sending heralds to more outlying areas, when Councils were fought for and formed across the globe -- sometimes with, sometimes without, the perfect cooperation of local magi -- and when The Forces Began To Rally, many a speech was given about working together, about setting aside differences, about getting over your goddamn egos, as one irritable Son of Ether Master had put it, and all that.
Well. That's why Eileen, the little apprentice who could, gets allowed to Do Stuff. Even the initiates in Chicago seemed averse to doing any of that 'working together' or 'setting aside my goddamn ego' business. And while there's some leeway for the grownups, but the Chicago initiates are learning that if you bring that attitude to the kiddie table, you get sent to time-out. It's a hard lesson. Many initiates are in time-out these days because of silly mistakes like putting other people's lives and the chantry and basically everything and everyone at risk.
So: here comes an adept (she's pretty sure she got the address right, she has a good sense of direction), and he has A Job to do (god only knows what that might be, because they would really rather her not know too much Just In Case), and she is going to help him. Because she's a team player. Because she's smart. So far, she hasn't gotten anyone killed or captured.
She is also patient. While she waits for this person, who for all she knows has been told 'you can't miss her' or given her picture and a full dossier, she drinks her milkshake and she keeps her hand on the canister of mace in her lap. It's a black case, of course. There is a sticker on it, though. It says pew, pew! and has fireworks on it. Holographic. Very cool. That, however, is not what Dane is going to see when he does find her, or overlook her, or walk right up to her and say hey there, Kewpie doll.
What he will see is a woman, mid-twenties, petite and slender. Her hair is very long, thick, and dark, her face a bit on the 'elfin' side, her eyes large and almond (in shape) and grey (in color, though to be quite precise they are a bit green sometimes). Because she is on a Mission and doing a Job, she is wearing pants, boot-cut and red-charcoal plaid, with a black leather belt that has star-shaped studs in it. Her sneakers are black and more black, even the soles. Her t-shirt is small and white and the sort of gauze-thin nonsense they're selling to ladies these days, so you can see the black bra underneath it. A denim jacket is on her lap.
That's what he'll see. And the quarter-portion of her milkshake that is still in her cup and not in her belly yet.
DaneThe problem with any war, any effort that involves human minds, is that order is always imposed on the raw teeming masses. Hierarchies are set up. Limitations are laid down. It's necessary, of course; without order there is no direction, and without direction there is no victory. But the first casualty of hierarchy is transparency, and the first casualty of order is expediency.
That's why this meeting. That's why this very important, very mysterious mission, which Eileen knows only the barest details of. She knows: be here in this diner, at this time. She knows: wait for an Adept to join her. She knows his name, too, or at least one word of it. Dane. Short. Not quite brutish, but certainly brusque.
Beyond that, she knows very little. She doesn't know who this 'Dane' is, or quite where he hails from. Why he was called into Chicago to help with their slice of the conflict. Anything about him, really. And when people talk about him, this Dane of House Ignis, there's a curious little behaviorism every time. They always praise his skill. They always speak highly of the extraordinary strength of his will. A genius with forces, they say, particularly the lambent, dynamic ones. And more simply: You don't want to get in the way when he starts casting. They're always quick to assure her she's in good, capable hands ... and yet, every time, she detects just the faintest pauses, the faintest hints of something held back. Something not quite said. Eyebrows just a little raised. Doubts just a little below the surface. A 'but' that's never quite spelled out.
Nor did tell her what, exactly, she was sent to do. Simply that she would be informed by Dane when they made contact. One supposes it's to protect sensitive information, just in case she should fall into the wrong hands. Which is an imposing thought, really. This young woman, mid-twenties with her thick hair and her elfin face, with her milkshake and her thoughts of digestion and her recognition that nothing ever really disappears, is now a sort of secret agent in a secret war. Bad things could happen to her. And should they happen, she might not be saved. There may not even be an attempt, depending on the danger, the risk and reward. She might simply be expendable, acceptable losses in the face of conflict.
There are footsteps behind her. The man to whom they belong is perhaps ten years older than Eileen. He wears a leather jacket, a slimmer, trendier take on the classic bombadier. He walks slowly, looking at every face he passes, comparing them to whatever he has on the smartphone in his hand. When he sees Eileen, he stops, checks the phone, and then sits in her booth, across from her.
He is lean-faced, square-jawed and thin-lipped. His nose is a little on the large side, prominent, almost noble. He does not smell of ashes and smoke, but his eyes are perpetually glowering. He studies Eileen for a moment. Then he turns his phone around so she can see the small headshot of her he has. She might recognize it. It appears to be her high school yearbook photo pulled by godknowswho from godknowswhere, years old but still recognizably her.
"This is you?" It is merely confirmation. "I'm Thomas Dane."
And so she has a second piece of his name.
eileenIt isn't said in any of those meetings with the Grown Ups, not out loud, but it's not just teamwork and humility and knowing her place and generally being friendly that has Eileen 'assigned' to this flamethrower of a human being. Those pauses when they talk, those things held back. It isn't that they're afraid of scaring her. It's that they're being polite. It's that they really don't want to be too melodramatic about things like ONOZ U MITE DIE. They know her background, or at least some of it. They don't want to question the faint, patient smile on her face when they're telling her not-everything. There are multiple reasons why they decided she was just the apprentice for the job.
There are footsteps behind her. She hears them, and she doesn't try to be too cool. She twists around and looks, the quick glance she'd give anyway, but this isn't someone walking straight past and he's so obviously not a local of this area that she doesn't just turn back around and mind her own nonsense. He's coming right to her, so she keeps her mace at hand, she sucks her strawberry milkshake up, and she looks him up and down real quick.
There's something off about him. She was expecting a bit of that, hard to avoid when you get past rudimentary magics, really, but he seems to have it under control. She finishes her shake, waggles the cup to see if any more will go up the straw, slurps the rest, and peers forward when he shows her her high school yearbook photo. Her hair was straightened in it. She looks up at him, one eyebrow squinted inward, the other drawn up high. Maybe he expects her to say uh, okay, weirdo, but she just blinks a couple of times.
"You know, you could have just texted me and I could send you a better photo than that. My phone actually takes really good pictures. I'm Eileen. Would you like to sit, or will we be leaving?"
DaneBy the time she says that, he's already sat. "We're leaving soon," he says, and despite that, grabs a menu off the rack. "After I get a sandwich. I'm starving. Do you want anything?"
This is the sort of place with salt and pepper and ketchup and mustard at the end of the table, along with syrup for the pancakes, a box for the napkins, and laminated menus tucked into a holder. Inexpensive. Hearty. A little bit cheap, but not terribly. Dane glances quickly at the options, then flags down a tired-looking waitress.
"Tuna melt to go, fries on the side." No thank you; no please. It's people like him that make the waitresses here look tired. And then, putting the menu back: "What have they told you about what we're doing today?"
eileenEileen seems to take all this rudeness, brusqueness in without much concern or eyelash-batting. She does notice, she does take it in, and perhaps is anywhere from aroused to amused to awkward to appalled, for all the difference it makes. She just smiles when he asks her if she wants anything. "Oh, thank you, but no. I got here early and ate while I waited. Not that I wouldn't eat a strawberry milkshake for dinner, I don't want you to think I'm squeamish about that sort of thing, but it was actually a dessert in this case. Sort of a beverage and dessert, because I don't know if there's going to be running or anything in my near future and I didn't want to do a soda and a milkshake and end of vomiting everywhere. That'll slow down an evening."
Not ruin. Slow down.
She talks quickly, and her topics are a bit random, but something about her tone seems so matter-of-fact, so conversational, that it doesn't even seem like rambling. She isn't talking quickly or a lot from nervousness or uncertainty or shyness; she isn't doing it to (frantically) avoid an awkward silence. She doesn't speak with embarrassment or hesitance; there is actually something quite forceful about it all, as though everything she says actually is helpful and useful to him. That's her tone. Her demeanor. It's remarkably effective.
"I don't know very much. I know as much about you as I suppose anyone does right now, around here, which is enough. I believe I'm expected to protect myself and, when and if possible and to the best of my ability, you. I'm quite respectful of authority and obviously much, much nicer than you are, so I'm sure those will or could be helpful to you. We could be a study in relative weakness, but I'd be a bit put off if I was being studied without being asked, so I don't think that's what's going on. That's really more a Crat's sort of thing, people as rats in a maze."
She looks around, then back at him. "What would you like me to know about what we're doing today?"
eileen[end of = end up]
DaneShe talks. Her conversation is never quite disjointed, but it wanders. It meanders. It goes all over the place, and somewhere in the midst of it Dane's eyes drop to the tabletop. He pushes a crumb of bread around aimlessly. He may or may not be listening, but when she gets to much nicer than you are his eyes flick suddenly back. They are quite dark; and yet with a hard, flat shine, like lustrous metal.
He says nothing. She says ... even more. In the end, she asks what they're going to do today. What he would like her to know, which is rather carefully phrased. Not stupid, he thinks, despite the jabbering. He inhales sharply through his nostrils, straightening, and reaches over to whip a napkin out of the box.
"This is where we're going," he says, taking a pen from inside his coat and beginning to draw. It looks like a floorplan. "It is a four-story apartment block about half a mile from here. There is a gentleman in this unit," briskly, expertly, he indicate the northwest corner unit, then immediately expands it into its own floorplan, "who was once a rising Verbana Adept of some promise. Around the time the last war ended, he was taken by the Technocracy. Things were done to him, the details of which have never come to light. That is probably a blessing.
"Regardless, when he surfaced again two years ago, his body was broken and his mind was largely gone. But locked in that mind is information, intimate details regarding the Technocratic cell in this city, and perhaps in this entire region. The Council believes we need that information, and you and I have been dispatched to retrieve it.
"You are to try the 'soft approach' first. It was thought that your affability and considerable ease with conversation," it is impossible to tell if he's mocking her, "would be an asset in this situation. You are not responsible for actually accessing the information; merely for convincing him to come back to headquarters with us so the Masters can try. However, we don't know what his state of mind is, or what he might do -- what he might still be capable of -- if he felt himself threatened. That's what I'm here for: to subdue him if necessary, and to bring him back if the soft approach fails.
"Questions?"
eileenShe's attentive as he gives her the rundown, though as he goes on and she gets the gist of what the Job really is, and her part in it, she pays a little less attention to what he's drawing than to what he's saying. That isn't to mean that she ignores the floorplan; she certainly isn't intending to fold it up and take it with her, but she does not try to glean every last detail from it. For her part, what's said is more vital, though it's good to be prepared.
All in all, Eileen seems fairly amused. Not giddy, not excited to be let in to do Big Jobs with the Grown Ups, not bouncing her seat, but smiling a lopsided little smile as though Dane is just positively adorable, as though he's reminding her of this hilarious cat video on YouTube.
She nods in understanding, though. "Not really," she answers, as far as questions go. "I would like confirmation on two things, one suggestion, and posssssibly a request. But first: I need to know that you'll back off while I try the 'soft approach', and support me there as much as you expect me to support you if it shifts to the 'not-really-that-soft approach'. No eyerolling behind my back, no glowering at the man while I'm talking to him, no alpha male posturing while blocking his exit, because if you're going to do things like that then we might as well not bother. If we don't want him to feel threatened, I need you to commit --" she doesn't say promise me, which may matter, "to being as non-threatening as you can. And again, if you aren't willing or able to do so, then we should adjust the plan to simply going in and dragging him out and forget any soft-approach attempt, though I think we both know that will have its own consequences."
Eileen begins to fidget with his map. "The second confirmation is sort of a question, and that's just to double-check that you're also here to take care of it and guarantee our swift escape just in case this 'mind gone' business is a load of hooey and he's actually been turned."
As bits of Dane's map begin to tear off, fluttering to the table like snowflakes, the waitress returns with Dane's bagged tuna melt and fries and his check. She still looks tired. Eileen looks quite content to tear up his map idly, just keeping her hands busy. It doesn't even look like she knows she's doing it. And there's no question, really, even while she's smiling at the waitress and telling her thank you, that what Eileen just really said was: so you're going to kill him if he's actually a Bad Guy, right? that's also part of the contingencies to this plan?
The waitress walks away, and Eileen resumes her conversation: "If that's the case, my request is that you give me some sort of signal before going ahead with it. That's all. Annnd my suggestion is that we have some kind of agreed-upon point where we switch off, so that you don't bust into the soft approach too soon and so I don't keep trying it all night to no avail. I think it's a very good idea for us to both be on the same page there, don't you agree?"
She looks at him and smiles. There is a snowy pile of shredded napkin in front of her.
DaneDane's brow furrows as Eileen lays out her list of things he might do to ruin the encounter. That's not saying much - his brow is so often furrowed - but this time he makes a note:
"I would never jeopardize the task at hand for the sake of my ego. I won't argue that you're more of a people person than I am. Perhaps even 'nicer'. But I am not some arrogant overbearing sexist, and it's frankly insulting that you would automatically assume that you were in danger of receiving that sort of treatment from me. I have, to the best of my knowledge, done nothing to suggest as much.
"You can proceed as you wish. You don't have to worry about my interference. If it weren't for the safety concern, I wouldn't even follow you in while you tried to reason with him.
"As for a pre-agreed tradeoff point: if and when you feel you've a lost cause on your hands, or if and when he becomes aggressive, I take over. At that point, I would of course expect your full cooperation in return. And if he is, in fact, turned -- I'll take care of it."
eileenShe looks worried, even upset, when he says I would never-- and the parts that follow. By the time that Dane gets to arrogant overbearing sexist and frankly insulting, Eileen looks positively knotted with emotional agitation. She's shaking her head, says: "Thomas --" and then stops, because he's still talking.
DaneHe pauses: quite neatly, in fact. In stark contrast, despite being the 'insulted' party, Dane is level as a rock. Hardly flustered at all. He raises his eyebrows, waiting.
eileen"That isn't what I meant," she says, calming now that she has a chance to explain. "I don't know you -- I wouldn't presume to! But the thing is, just by being here and explaining why I'm here, it kinda gives the impression that the Powers That Be have deemed that you aren't capable of doing the Good Cop thing, or at least you're not good enough at it to risk trying. And a person who is nice to you but not nice to the waitress is not a nice person, and so my litmus test says you're not very nice. I know your rank and I know some of what your abilities are, and so I know you are, perhaps even without intending to be, very threatening. Your eyes do some very funny things when you're not looking, did you know that?
"I don't know anything about your ego," Eileen says, giving a small shake of her head. "I ran down a list of things that people I've worked with have done before that have screwed things up. I wasn't meaning to imply assumptions about the deep darks in your character. I mean, would it kill you to say please and thank you? If lives need to be at risk for you to use basic courtesy then I really am going to be worried about working with you, but -- anyway,"
she takes a breath, exhales in a rush. "I really am sorry," she finishes, frowning. "I honestly wasn't trying to insult you. I just don't want to get turned inside-out by a possible master of life who is probably psychotic because of an exasperated sigh at the wrong moment." Her brow is still deeply furrowed. "Will you forgive me for the offense, knowing that as real as it may have been, it was not intended?"
DaneDane gives a wave of his hand, almost a flick, almost as though he were mildly annoyed by the depth of her apology. "It's already forgotten," he says. "And you're probably right. I'm not particularly nice. And no, it wouldn't kill me to try, but it wouldn't be genuine either. I'm not good at being nice; it doesn't come naturally to me, and I'm not one for false advertising. This is how I am. And I come off as threatening, then that's probably for the best as well."
His sandwich arrived some time ago. He finally pops the lid of the styrofoam box open, taking a look inside. It seems to satisfy him, though not quite please him. He clips the lid shut again and moves to stand.
"Let's go. Do you mind driving while I eat?"
DaneDane gives a wave of his hand, almost a flick, almost as though he were mildly annoyed by the depth of her apology. "It's already forgotten," he says. "And you're probably right. I'm not particularly nice. And no, it wouldn't kill me to try, but it wouldn't be genuine either. I'm not good at being nice; it doesn't come naturally to me, and I'm not one for false advertising. This is how I am. And I come off as threatening, then that's probably for the best as well.
"As for the rest of your suggestions and questions, etcetera: you can proceed as you wish. You don't have to worry about my interference. If it weren't for the safety concern, I wouldn't even follow you in while you tried to reason with him.
"If and when you feel you've a lost cause on your hands, or if and when he becomes aggressive, I'll take over. At that point, I would of course expect your full cooperation in return. And if he is, in fact, turned -- I'll take care of it."
His sandwich arrived some time ago. He finally pops the lid of the styrofoam box open, taking a look inside. It seems to satisfy him, though not quite please him. He clips the lid shut again and moves to stand.
"Let's go. Do you mind driving while I eat?"
eileenIt wouldn't be genuine, he says, and she keeps her thoughts on that -- it really is quite the layered statement, if you stop to think about it -- to herself. The things people say about themselves always are the most intriguing, the most oniony, the most complex. Like the girl with hazel eyes who always writes 'green' for eye color. Think of the levels there are to that. More than two. Definitely more than two.
Eileen's eyes are grey, though. They're larger and eversofaintly tilted, a strangely exotic feature in her otherwise very White American face. She reaches up and pushes her hair back, scritching along her scalp, then puts her palms on the table and stands as he does. "Don't mind at all," she says.
And out they go, food paid for, napkin snowpile flaking around the table, empty shake glass beside it.
DaneDane nods to that, curt, and gets up out of the booth. He leaves money, in cash, in abundance. More than enough to cover what he had and what she may or may not have had before him. If she's already paid; well, then the waitress gets an even larger tip.
On the way out, Dane pops the box open and starts eating. He pauses only to get his keys out and pass them to Eileen. It turns out Dane drives a silver Audi, a lovely sleek coupe that crouches low and wide on its four racing wheels. The interior is all dark leather. She has to adjust the driver's seat forward, while he slides the passenger's back.
"I put the address in navigation already," he says. "It's the first one in the saved list." He leans forward to get some napkins out of the glove compartment, then buckles himself in.
eileenEileen puts her jacket on as they leave. It's not terribly cold, but she stands out less in the white. She tosses her hair out from under the collar, takes the keys he hands her, and then they go out
to the Audi. She pauses there, keys in hand, and then gets a bright look on her face. "Oh, lovely," she comments, and hops a bit to the passenger side door. There is much scooting and adjusting and mirror-checking and she squirms happily into the driver's seat. There is tapping of the GPS to see the map, as though she wants that visual more than turn-by-turn voice directions, then he buckles in. And she takes a deep breath.
He's an Adept. He knows she's working as soon as it begins.
Her hands flex on the steering wheel. It's an almost -- no, not almost, but deeply -- sensual gesture, wrapping her long fingers around the rim, caressing it in her palm. Her wrists arch forward, hands sliding down the sides to 10 and 2, then down to 8 and 4, where her wrists relax again. She is breathing in deeply, exhaling when the muscles in her forearms and wrists relent. That sound, too, is more than a little evocative. She turns the engine on. Her eyes look almost silver in the reflection of light when she glances, one more time, at the GPS screen. She's wearing a faint smile. The Audi gives its rumbling purr beneath her, warm and responsive, and she moves her hand down to the gear shift, cups over it, wraps around it, moves it.
But all of that is what he sees and hears. What he feels is that sudden, appetite-warping sensation of the world tipping on its axis. He can, for a moment, feel it turning, and maybe it's not the first time he's felt that, but this isn't an Awakening, this isn't a recognition of his own power, his own awareness, it's... just her. Sideways and Up switch places, like they're on a boat and its tilting, like they're in the basket of a hot air balloon and some of their ropes just snapped. He can smell his tuna melt and his fries and his car's leather interior and Eileen herself and his own fingernails. The lights outside and inside the car are impossibly bright, their colors swirling, bleeding together like turpentine's been splashed on the canvas of the universe. The voice of his car, her breathing, his chewing, the city, all of it, everywhere, all of Chicago noisy in his head. It's not even a bad or good sensation as much as it is all simply overpowering.
Granted, that tuna melt tastes like nothing he's ever had in his mouth before. Which is interesting.
And also granted, it lasts perhaps a flicker of a moment, two seconds, a breath in and a breath out, a heartbeat and a half. She is, after all, pretty weak as far as magic goes. She's a candleflame, not a conflagration. God knows what it'd be like to feel her resonance if she were actually powerful.
And before he has time to say wait what the hell are you doing, Eileen gives a cackle and launches them into traffic. There are lights, and there are stop signs, and there are people and other cars and they're all moving at different speeds, but Eileen weaves through all of them like she's threading a needle. Every few seconds there is a moment, a split second, where it seems she's going to slam into a truck, the corner of a building, a bicyclist, but it never happens. Sometimes it never happens by blood-curdlingly narrow margin. Eileen's not cackling anymore. She's as focused on her working as one could possibly hope for, because as small a working as it really is, there are little things like lives at stake.
They arrive at their destination very quickly. Smoothly, actually. There isn't much tossing around in the car, as fast as she's driving. That may be because she seems to know exactly when to turn, when to shift the wheel, when to turn. That person crossing the street won't be there when she gets there. She just knows it. It's physics, to some degree. But it's a literally inhuman perception of what's going on around her. Even, to a degree, what will be going on around her in a few moments ahead of where she is now.
Eileen parks. She is quite perky when she turns to Dane. "Can I have your car?" It's a serious -- or half-serious -- question. As though people have given her cars before. As though regardless of the answer, she'll be equally pleased.
DaneEven with Eileen's visible glee at being handed the keys to his sleek silver coupe, Dane wasn't quite expecting ... that. There's a moment where the world seems to run together, molten and overbright, and if he were more inexperienced, if he was frankly less jaded, he might have gasped; he might have looked at her, he might have asked what the fuck.
He doesn't. He knows she's up to something. He braces for it, quietly and subtly, shifting his feet to the deadpedals, putting his sandwich down. And they're off. As fast as she drives - and it is very fast - they're never out of control. They never swerve; the tires never screech. They slide. They turn. They whip around corners sometimes, the bucket seats holding them firmly in place. The engine snarls and pedestrians whip their heads around, startled. They fly around the potholes that litter these streets, and meanwhile around them the neighborhood goes from the stylish-meets-rundown look of the south loop to the downright shady venues in southside proper.
Moments later they're at their destination. A four-story apartment complex, just as Dane said, brickfaced, visibly falling apart. Few lights are on. The streetlight closest to it is off, and one door down some loitering teenagers look at them with a belligerent sort of curiosity. Theirs is by far the nicest car on the street.
Dane unbuckles his seatbelt. He's barely taken two bites of his sandwich, so he brings it with him. Eileen asks for his car, and he flicks a glance at her. "No." And then something more unusual. The first sign of anything like ego, and perhaps humor: "But I could build you one from thin air."
Not nothing, though. Dane knows, believes, lives this truth: nothing can come from nothing.
eileenOne of Eileen's favorite people in Chicago, for that starry, brief period when she first moved here and met a few magi who were really very very self involved, was one rather traumatized, seemingly serious mage by the name of Vanessa-slash-Ashley. She met her in the office of one rather self-important mage by the name of Dr. Eastman, who was thoroughly convinced of his own coolness but was really very overdramatic about everything. He seemed instantly and a bit ridiculously upset that she was using magic when she brought him a cupcake, narrowing his eyes and asking questions with an edge to his voice as though everything had suddenly become A Big Fucking Deal. Then he turned around and told Vanessashley, who responded with music to Eileen's ears:
So what? We're Awake. We do magic. If you don't like it, then stop her.
It's not necessary to do what Eileen does. She doesn't rationalize it to herself or even pretend that it's necessary. She may even be just showing off. Look at me, look at me, drivin' an I won't stop! And it feels so good to be aliiive and on top! But when they get to the prescribed address, Thomas Dane does not chide her, isn't clutching at the OhShit bar or snarling at her, snapping at her, saying he'll never give her the keys again -- though he might not -- and just offers to make her a car out of thin air. Which really is feasible, because even at the more basic levels of Matter one could potentially turn lead to gold, air to leather.
She unbuckles, all energetic and so forth. "That won't be necessary, though I do accept gifts of cash and pastries from my many admirers," she says, and this may or may not be as true as his offer. Eileen bounds out of the car, fearless, but still carrying mace, so there's that.
DaneIf Eileen was at all worried that Dane would be upset by her usage of magic, she hardly showed it. Then again, if that was her worry, it was unfounded. Dane didn't scold her. If anything, he seemed -- maybe -- to like her a little better after. Not that he disliked her before. It's hard to tell what Dane is thinking, sometimes, or if he has specific opinions at all. There's a focus and a distance to him at once, as though years of magic use has gradually shifted him away from humanity. As though those flames, those lambent forces had slowly hollowed him out and turned him into a living conduit of catastrophe.
He smiles a little at her repartee, a slight twitch of his lips as though he's half-unfamiliar with the gesture. But he says nothing, and instead goes to the front door of the apartments. Their friend, or mark, or target, or whatever one might term that life-mage up on the third floor, is not listed on the fading directory. His unit number is, though, and Dane pushes the button.
Then he waits, but not very long. There is no answer. That likely does not surprise anyone. So Dane puts his hand on the doorhandle. The effect is so small, so inconsequential to a creature like him, that it's barely palpable. A pulse - blood rushing to the skin, a hard single pound of the heart - and with his inner eye he sees the tumblers, sees the deadbolt, moves it with his mind. There is a click.
Some mages would hurry to justify this tiny, public use of their powers now. Rush to say, Oh look! I guess the door's unlocked. Not Dane. He pulls the door open, holds it behind him for Eileen, and then starts up the narrow stairs. There is an elevator in the tiny, poorly-lit space that passes for the lobby as well, but he seems to prefer the physical act of climbing.
eileenDane doesn't wait long, so that means Eileen doesn't have to either. She watches him, and pays attention to the street, as he works. Her own senses are still so up, so heightened, that it is literally impossible to sneak up on her right now. She has a vague sense of the timing of all this, though she'd be hard-pressed to explain what she means to Dane if it came to it. Still, when they walk inside, the door still warm from Dane's touch of magic, she slows her steps suddenly.
"Wait."
Her eyes are unfocused a minute; the classic look of one of her Tradition, not because they're always high or always drunk or half-asleep, but because they're not always ...linear. She starts walking again, but slower. "Just... let's take our time," she says, and her feet become quite deliberate and quiet on the stairs. She doesn't strike up a conversation. She just meanders upward.
DaneNow that is entirely counter to Dane's style, Dane's personality. Taking his time: why? There were places to go, people to see, goals to accomplish. But he stops. His brow furrows, then he slows. She meanders. He takes a deep breath that suggests his impatience, but after that - not a word on it, not another sigh, nothing to berate her.
He walks with her. They go up one floor. And then the second. The stairs are old; the building is old. Creaky. It smells a little funky in here, mold in the walls probably. And the leftover smells of someone's cooking earlier.
"Is something the matter?"
eileenEileen shakes her head. "Nnnnnooope," she tells him, taking her time with the word, too. "It's just not... the right time to get there yet. Maybe I drove too fast." She shrugs.
DaneDane cocks an eyebrow. They have not stopped moving. They are still climbing, her steps meandering, his simply deliberate. He shoots a glance upward - one more round of stairs, and then the third floor - then looks again at this young mage he's been paired with.
"All right," he says. And that is all.
Of course, even at this pace, they must eventually reach the third floor. And it is as threadbare as the ones below, the hall lights guttering or simply coated by so many years of grime that the light they shed is minimal at best. As Dane and Eileen walk down the corridor to the corner unit, they can hear voices and noises through the thin walls of the complex. Here a television. There a wailing baby.
Then they're at the end of the hall. Unit 308. It is silent; no lights showing under the door.
eileenEileen always gets to her stop right as the bus is pulling alongside the curb. She always remembers when to switch her laundry over, always walks in just as some jerk is thinking about taking her still-wet clothes out of the dryer. She always gets to the club just as the mass groove is about to hit its peak. It isn't luck. It's most certainly magic, though.
It wouldn't really bother her if Dane decided not to wait. If he went ahead and jogged up the stairs. But it might surprise her a bit. They end up going at the pace she sets, quiet but not exactly stealthy, til they get to the hallway leading to the doorway of the man of the hour. And Eileen smiles as she heads down the hallway without pausing, then gives a cheerful series of arhythmic knocks on the door of 308. She doesn't put away or hide her mace.
She does look at Dane, though. "Oh. Thomas, do you know the man's name?"
DaneThis inquiry seem to take Dane almost by surprise. He looks at Eileen, and it takes him a moment to call the information to mind. Then: "Charles. Charles Manteuffel. Sometimes Charlie. Never Chuck."
There is no response: the door remains shut, the lights stay off. There are no footsteps. If Eileen's senses are still expanded, if some lingering trace of the magic she invoked in the car still clings to her, she might detect faint, unpleasant smells through that door: sweat, rotten food, piss, the dank and unfiltered stench of a human being that has gone too long without taking care of himself.
After a moment, Dane lifts his hand and knocks again: firmly, un-cheerful. And barely a few seconds later, unless Eileen stops him, he starts to reach for the doorknob.
eileen"Charlie?" she says, and this seems to please her. She shakes her head. "Oh yeah, Chuck is a horrible nickname."
She turns back to the door, frowning a little at it. Her senses are most certainly broadened, deeper than human, but it isn't exactly a physical thing. She doesn't smell the piss or the rotten food so much as she feels the degradation of it all. She knows there's a mind in there, a living and human mind, a living human body. Vaguely, she can gauge how healthy that body is, but she's not trying to look much at that mind, that body, particularly since it's through a wall and she's not sure she wants to know.
What she can't sense is if there's magic active in there, unless it's quite strong. She thinks she could push to tell if the mind is even awake, if the body is, but she doesn't want to pry or intrude, not just becaue it's rude but because
this is a once-Verbena once-Adept who may be violently insane, and she'd rather not have her skin turned inside-out, as she mentioned. She senses those pale wards. She senses the state of the mind inside, if not the exact thoughts. She knows that he knows that they're out there. Her dark, slim brows are tugged together a bit. If she were more powerful she could change herself, change the air or something around her, influence him, but then: she might not do a thing like that.
Dane moves his hand to the doorknob after that sharper, heavier rapping, and Eileen puts her hand on his wrist. She shakes her head at him. "Thomas," she says quietly, almost chiding. "Be polite. This is where he lives. And it's already not a nice place." She doesn't tap on the door again; she knows he heard that. She does lean in. "Mr. Manteuffel?" Her voice is level and calm, with a curiosity to it that's a little infectious. "Charlie? My name's Eileen. I'm here with a new friend of mine."
She's met Hermetics before. She doesn't give Mr. Manteuffel Dane's name. Either of them.
"I'd say I'm ecstatic to get to meet you, but that's a bit punny for even me," she goes on, her voice lifted just enough to carry through the door. "You know I'm not here to hurt you. I know you know that." She waits a moment. If she hears no answer, she keeps talking. What's interesting is how sincere she sounds. How genuine the compassion in her voice is. And how little she lies, how perfectly transparent she is: "Charlie, I think you have every right to want us to go away, but we aren't going to. If what I'm doing is bothering you, I'll stop. I know it can sometimes make people feel a bit sick, or upset, or overwhelmed." There's another pause, another silence.
Dane can feel the apprentice's magic dissipate. The resonance of it fades, too. Colors seem more dull, sounds less vibrant. If being around Eileen while she's using magic is like being on E or mushrooms, the end of it is like the dropoff, the aftermath, the listlessness that follows. It's a brief feeling, but it's both a relief and a disappointment.
"There," she tells Charlie. "Maybe that will make it easier for you to talk to me. But I do want to come in, Charlie. And if you're afraid of coming to the door, then my friend will open it and we'll lock it again for you once we come inside. Okay?"
DaneWith her stretched senses, with that amorphous blanketing of her mind over her immediate vicinity, she can sense Charles cringing inside when she calls him by name. It is at once physical and emotional and mental - an all-over drawing in, tucking in, self-protective.
There is no answer, though. She speaks, and he cringes, and even though they are each aware of the other he doesn't speak, doesn't speak, maybe if he doesn't say anything she'll be bored and just gogo go away.
And then her magic fades. Outside, Dane takes a silent, controlled breath, rolling his shoulders under his jacket. Standing beside her like this, he is a solid, dark presence, an inch or two below six feet, built without being ripped. He is not quite impatient, but he is clearly waiting: waiting for progress, waiting for action.
There, Eileen calls through the door. And a little later: If you're afraid of coming to the door, then my friend will open it --
"NO!" The scream is thin and high with terror. "Nonononononononono! NO. STAY OUT. NO."
Dane's lips thin. He tugs his ear, rubs behind his neck for a moment, then shifts his weight between his feet.
eileenEileen lifts her eyebrows, pulling back from the door with all the shrieking. She debates internally. She seems to be mostly ignoring Dane, but she isn't. She also seems paler than she was before, but isn't visibly swaying or breaking down. It's just incredibly clear, very obvious, how upsetting it is to her to hear, see, feel, sense so much pain.
"If you don't want us to come in," she says patiently, "then you have to come out. That's the only choice I can think of. We aren't going away."
Dane"Go away," the voice inside moans. They're not forcing their way in; there's that, at least. And Charles Manteuffel, or the broken shell that used to be Charles Manteuffel, promising Adept of the Verbana, seems to settle a little. Stops shrieking like broken glass, at least. "Just go away. Can't you just go away? You've done enough, I've done terrible things, just...
"Just go, go. Leave me alone."
Outside, Dane looks at Eileen. "This isn't going anywhere," he says, low. "I'm going to open the door." It seems a little like a question, though - his eyebrows up, his hand on the knob awaiting her response.
eileenFor all her patience, all her compassion, all her everything, Eileen is growing impatient. This could go on all night, back and forth, while the man inside moans in his shattered mind, and then Dane might just literally explode and she'd have two Adepts going at it while she tries to hide behind the couch. She exhales. No: she sighs. Then, corralling her voice: "We're not here to punish you." She doesn't use his name again. He cringed at the sound of it before. She wonders about that.
"But we aren't going away. And I'm sorry, I really am, because I know this is only going to make you feel worse, but we're going to come inside now."
She steps back from the door, giving Dane a little more room to step in.
DaneWhen Dane lays his hand on the doorknob and focuses his will inward, the truth is
he would like to throw that door off its hinges; blast it across the room with the force of its own disintegrating atoms. It's not even that he's properly angry. It's impatience; it's a sense of time wasted. It's also simply a desire to rip apart what is whole.
He doesn't, though. He controls his power. He alters those subtle forces that hold the lock in balance: a little less gravity, a little more nudge. The lock slides back. Charles, inside, is breathing so shallowly and rapidly that Eileen can hear him right through the flimsy door. Dane glances at her once to see if she's ready. Then he pushes the door open, and
instantly, a stinking, feral tatter of a man comes screaming, leaping, clawing at them.
eileenIt doesn't take magically enhanced awareness -- or even an astute look into someone's eyes -- to tell what Dane wants to do to that door right now. Eileen is curious, standing aside and watching him. She doesn't read too deeply into it, nor into the fact that he chooses restraint. You simply don't get as far as he has by being completely unhinged all the time, just as you don't get very far by being too stifled, too held-back, too limited.
That's the whole point, for some Cultists. Throwing off those limitations that are stopping you from transcendance. And some of them take it so far, do it so often and so thoughtlessly, that they become what even the Cult calls burnouts. They never rise above their own weaknesses, they only indulge them. The line is hard to see, the real limitations and the real blockages hard to discern.
For a Cultist, an Ecstatic, Eileen seems remarkably even-keeled. She's a bright spot in one's periphery, that's the truth, but her behavior has been confused with that of Choiristers before, the ones who are out to try and heal the sick and the wounded and the world. She's an apprentice, her magic very mild, but her knowledge broad and her understanding of their separate culture very deep. The way she breathed, so deep and so sensual, as she worked magic in his car, was nearly Tantric. The way she asked if Dane was also going to kill Charles if necessary was not detached, not emotionless, but still matter-of-fact.
The way she watches Dane as he opens the door is curious, but disappointed that Charles is being so stubborn.
The way she reacts when the door slowly swings open and Charles comes screaming at them is soundless. No yelp, no shriek, no gasp of surprise. She just ducks and rolls out of the way.
DaneDane, meanwhile, standing more directly in the path of one Charles Manteuffel, is squarely barreled into. Sheer momentum carries him into the wall, where he impacts with a solid thud. There's a brief, wild scuffle: Charles, yelling wildly, is using elbows, knees, teeth, nails. Dane is not, in fact, a master brawler. He grunts, he lets a punch fly that goes wide, he curses as he takes a bite to the arm, and then
he connects: his fist into Charle's jaw. Then a followup. His hands grab the other man by the hair -- he detects greasiness, doesn't have time for distaste -- and then he slams him facefirst into the wall.
There's a burst - soundless, a sense of withering, decay, horror; senseless and chaotic. Charles drops to the floor, tensing horribly. His leg twitches for a second. Then, and very suddenly, he is limp. A thin trickle of blood escapes his nose. His eyes are staring, and the pupils blow out.
He does not seem to be breathing. Dane, panting, stares at him. "Shit."
eileenEileen rolls, and her form is in a crouch when she stops, tossing her hair back off her face to look at what's happening. She sees Dane try to hit Charlie, sees Dane get bitten, and when Dane hits again and connects this time, Eileen flinches. She doesn't, however, start screaming for anyone to stop, stop. She does, all the same, shut her eyes and turn her face away when she grasps what is going to happen when Dane grabs Charlie's hair. That doesn't stop her from hearing the impact of one man's face into the wall. She gives the faintest shudder at the sound of it, then opens her eyes again and turns her face back towards the ...action, for lack of a better word.
She's rising to her feet as Charlie is crumpling to the ground. She isn't out of breath, but her cheeks are flushed from sheer adrenaline. "Uhoh," she manages to say, and then runs into Charlie's kitchen while Dane is exhaling an expletive.
If it weren't for that sense of something wrong, something decaying, she might not be throwing open cabinets, searching the fridge right now. She is already high on desperation, suddenly, on the sick feeling in her stomach from what she just finished, but she needs more. And if it weren't for that ugly, unnatural tension in Charlie's eyes, his pupils going out, if it weren't for her sheer familiarity with situations like this, she wouldn't be acting so quickly.
Eileen finds a bottle of Wild Turkey. The apartment is miniscule, studio-style, the cheapest possible, and Dane has a courtside view for the girl in the plaid pants screwing off the top, upending the bottle, and chugging. Three deep, thick swallows, then two more for good measure, and she doesn't pretend it has no effect on her, is sticking out her tongue and gagging and coughing afterward, coming back over to Dane. Already the magic is building around her. The floor and ceiling are switching places, the room swaying, then turning around like a carousel picking up speed.
He can almost hear Fucik's Entry of the Gladiators.
"Hit me," she says, and explains, because it's Eileen: "It works better if it's not self-inflicted."
Dane"I did not hit him that hard," Dane is saying, but
Eileen is dashing into the apartment, she's rummaging through the injured (dead?) man's cupboards. There's nothing in the fridge except a banana, black with age. In the cupboards: an alarming amount of cup noodles, one after another after another after another, tumbling out on her as she fumbles through them. Then a drawer full of knives. Two forks in yet another drawer, and nothing else at all, and
finally, under the sink, where most people keep their 409 and their Windex and their Clorox, a bottle of Wild Turkey. She brings it back. Dane has hauled Charles into the living room. It's a mess in here, blankets on the floor, dirty clothes, empty noodle cups. It's like he's living in a nest on the ground, it's like he spends his entire time here curled up.
And yet for all that: plants in the room. Plants in every corner, pots of them squinched together with no apparent order. Plants growing strangely, twistedly, churning and thorny and dark-leaved, brittle, bulging with tumors here and there, dry. They should be dead, but they're not. They're growing rampant.
Charles isn't moving. His eyes are open, a bit of dry spittle at the corner of his mouth. Eileen can see him now, and he looks absolutely terrible: sunken and emaciated, skin over bones, hair grown long and tangled with filth. Dane is feeling for a pulse, which he cannot find.
Hit me, she says. Dane looks at her doubtfully. She insists. So he gets up, and he does, backhanding her across the face. It is not gentle.
eileenShe doesn't know if he's going to punch her or slap her or throw her into a wall. She doesn't know if he's going to use his fist or his palm, the back of his hand, his knee, his elbow, his head. She doesn't know where he's going to hit her. How hard. It's exhilirating. She doesn't know this man at all. He could really hurt her. He could be unspeakably gentle with her and she doesn't know, she really has no idea, and that's where the power is.
You can't tickle yourself. And she can't exist in a vacuum, all by herself, with no other mortals or mages to help her do what she needs and wants to do, become who she needs and wants to be. That's where the magic comes from. Sensation. Connection. Ecstasy.
It's all a bit low and crude, relying on things like adrenaline and booze-chugging and some quick physical pain. There's no grace or ritual to any of it, but to make everything about high art and ignoring the grotesque or simple is as big a mistake as never reaching for the heights. So: Wild Turkey and a hand across her face. It'll do.
Dane's dubious look only lasts a moment, and Eileen is getting impatient already with even that. If he waits any longer it'll kill the momentum. It'll be like that guy who stops eating you out to ask you if you're about to come and really you just want to slam your knee into his head, Jesus. But: just a beat. And then he hits her. It's not gentle. It's not as hard as he can possibly hit, either, and she's not as fragile and frail as one might think, but she's hardly a bricklayer. Eileen stumbles and sways to the side but does not go down, her hand to her cheek where he hit her, a bright redness blossoming along her elegant cheekbone.
For Dane, the smells in the apartment just got enough to send his stomach clenching and twisting. The colors of brown and gray and green seem to overtake the universe. For Eileen, the world opens up. She smells peanuts and sawdust, hears music, smells all kinds of drek. It's everything she was doing before, but more now: the time of things, their age and their place in the great tangled ball of wibbly-wobbly stuff, the pulse of living breathing and heartbeating, the boundaries in this place and around it, the potential that they are being watched, the mind that is in Dane and herself and Charlie and around them, the state of their souls, the presence or absence of things across the veil between worlds, the decay in Charlie himself, the plants, the wretchedness around them, the millions of threads of fate narrowing down to a few Most Probable Outcomes, and perhaps most importantly,
magic itself. The thumbprints of working, of spells, of power.
There is no describing what the world looks and feels like to Eileen right now. Her eyes are rings of silver around wide black pupils, her skin pale except for her red red lips and her pink pink cheek, but she doesn't grab anything or anyone for balance. She doesn't look shocked or awed or overcome. She has, truth be told, more raw power than she used in his car. She just isn't doing much with it but looking at the world differently. A lot differently.
DaneFor the second time, and so much more so this time, Eileen melts the borders between herself and the larger world. Her consciousness expands; it drenches the space around her, makes everything brilliance and vertigo. She perceives:
There is Dane, kneeling on the ground. There he is, a hot point, like focal light with a core of blackness; stars spinning into singularities. He has control over himself, but oh how thin that margin really is, and how deep that darkness in him goes - that place of anger and pain and futility from which he draws all his considerable power. She can sense that, too, clinging to him like smoke: the destruction in his history. Nothing clear, nothing crystal, but - god, if he wanted to he could tear the very atoms of the air apart, pull raw energy from the wounds, shape it, direct it. Throwing a fireball is the very least of what he could do, and this is the chaotic, howling power behind that cold, disciplined face.
There is Dane. There is the carpet he kneels on, which is dirty, which has stories,
once upon a time when this place wasn't so terrible there was a young couple, Eileen sees them only in a blur, they made love on this spot and later on they raised a child who won a scholarship to UIC against all odds, but
he was shot outside a 7-Eleven because he wouldn't give up his cell phone, and
that couple moved away, and now here is the carpet, worn and dirty, smudged from dirt -- when Charlie moved in here, when he limped here broken by the ones who took him, when he still had some semblance of will and desire to live, he tried to make this place a refuge. He plants things, living things that reminded him of who he was, but the months went on and the Traditions were so weak, so weak, they had just been broken over the knee of the Technocracy, they had no strength to spare for him. And so those plants grew twisted as his mind collapsed, and now:
here is Charlie,
who is not dead,
even though his heart is stopped. Eileen can perceive that too: can see through the folds of space and time, can see the muscle of his heart not contracting, not quivering, but stopped. His lungs are not moving. And yet in his brain there are still sparks of errant electricity. There are still thoughts in his mind, and they are fear, fear, just make them go away and leave me alone, maybe if i lie very very shh still they will go away, if i make myself so still that even my heart is motionless maybe they won't hurt me anymore.
Dane, for all his might, cannot sense any of this. His fingers are at Charlie's carotid. He does not feel a pulse.
[More background details that Eileen may be able to pick up:
Essentially Charlie has regressed into a very feral, instinctive state that is wholly dominated by fear. Consciously, he is only capable of the most minimal magic - for example, keeping a very thin ward up in order to sense who may be outside. OOCish side note on that: he did indeed detect that Eileen had no harmful intentions, but he also detected Dane, who is all GRR and >:|. So he did not feel safe at all.
Back to Charlie, though: consciously, his magic is very, very decayed. He barely has any grasp of it left. But unconsciously/subconsciously, he can still tap into his full power. Which means when he feels very threatened, he will instinctively react to protect himself. In this case, when they busted in on him, he essentially played possum. It's not a conscious effect at all - it's really more akin to a defensive reflex.]
eileenEileen is quite petite. And despite her Tradition, she is not so inundated with drugs and alcohol that she's immune to them. She, in fact, puts quite a bit of effort into making sure that she doesn't numb herself by overexposure. That's a good way to turn into a burnout. So the five gulps of booze are going straight into her like a shot, warming her under the skin and between the legs, making her brain a little fuzzy. She exhales, sighing, and looks at Dane.
"You are so... orange," she says, and shakes her head as though to clear her vision. "Careful you don't become an ember," says the girl from a group of magi who are sometimes, sometimes if one wants to be respectful, called Seers.
She lowers herself to the carpet and crawls on her hands and knees over to Charlie. Things too far back or too far forward she can't see, but she does feel impulses, fades of old voices, old people, old things that happened here. It's a lot to sift through to see what is Charlie and what isn't. She goes over to Dane first, though, while he's starting to check Charlie, and puts her arms around him. "I'm really sorry," she says, and
means it,
before she flops down on her ass next to the once-Verbena, nudging aside Dane's hand from Charlie's pulse with her own fingers, which are momentarily chilly at the tips. "It's cool," she drowses, like the ganja-riddled folk associated with her tradition. "It's not beating, but his brain's still...y'know."
Eileen shrugs and lays down next to Charlie as though she's suddenly super sleepy. She curls up by him, hand on his chest, even though he smells horrific, even though he's been living in a nest of terror and pain for god knows how long, how many years. She feels how thin he is under his clothes, how bony and malnourished and soft. Her silver eyes close. For a moment it looks like she's going to sleep. But she's not.
She whispers: "Charlie. Charlie, guess what? There are masters again. There's a witch on the Council here now, Cynthia, and you know what? I bet she could help you make your plants better again. They aren't okay like they are now. They're alive but they're not okay. That's like you, Charlie." Her hand smooths over his chest, the way a mother might rub the chest of a child with a cough, gentle and light, trying to relax the muscles beneath, trying to soothe some of the blockage and stiffness. "I know my friend here is scary, but he only hit you because you panicked, and I know you only panicked because we came in when you didn't want us to, and this is where you live, I know. I know," she murmurs, giving him a gentle squeeze. "It's all very scary. But it's going to be okay. We can take you somewhere safe and bring your plants, and you can get strong again and they can get strong again. There's a garden at the chantry, Charlie. You could talk to Cynthia there. It's spring. You shouldn't be stuck inside all the time in spring."
DaneEileen is by definition only an apprentice. Her knowledge of magic is so broad, but so very shallow still. However, these are merely technicalities.
The truth is Eileen's grasp of magic is deep and true. Deeper than any apprentice's; deeper than most initiates'. When she perceives the world, her insight goes so deep. When she responds, that response is so deeply felt, and so --
well. Wise.
Dane startles a little, a very slight subdermal jerk of his muscles, as Eileen wraps her arms around him. It's like she's coasting on an altered state of mind. She is so sorry, and he doesn't know why. What is there to be sorry about? It's not like he meant to kill the guy.
But no. That's not why she's sorry. He doesn't know that, though, and she drops down on the ground like this is some college pot-party, and she's so high now she has to rub her cheek on the floor, feel its very texture. She puts her arm around Charlie, poor stinking, starved, scared Charlie, whose body is quite dead but whose will still persists.
Charlie, she says. Charlie, guess what. And she tells him: there are masters again. There is order again. There's hope again, there's alliance and allegiance amongst the mages that were not so long ago broken and scattered and fleeing.
They can help you, she says. There's a witch that can make your plants better again. There's a garden. It's spring. There's hope.
Dane's brow is furrowed. His eyes are aching. Eileen doesn't see it, but the lean muscles of his face twitch and work as he struggles between emotions: disbelief and the raw want to believe, anger and memory. He says nothing. He bites his lip so he will say nothing.
Then that thin, caved chest beneath Eileen's hand thrums. And then again. A pulse, like the beat of a faraway train's wheels, begins to rise, drumming until it's palpable. Suddenly Charlie gasps, a heaving sound that makes Dane startle again. "Jesus," he murmurs, and meanwhile
Charlie's pupils react to light again. They constrict. His eyes blink, and then they move. He looks at Eileen, and his hand covers hers, holds on tight.
"It's spring?" he whispers. "I don't even remember..."
eileenTo any sleeper that might be watching, Eileen just brought Charles back to life. He was too weak, too afraid to live when his apartment was broken into and his face spun around by a single punch, and his heart likely stopped out of sheer terror, like a rabbit. Dane killed him in self-defense, and then
Eileen brought him back to life.
There are no sleepers here right now, though. Just Dane, who is all but scowling because of what he's seeing and what it's making him feel. Eileen isn't watching him right now, but she can sense the warp and weft of things around her. Flickers of emotions she is not trying to name, changes in the pulse of someone she's not really focused on. She is focused on Charlie, though. And his pulse starts up again, quivering and then real. He breathes. He moves.
She stays right where she is, against his side on the floor, her posture very similar to the one of a woman with her lover, and the once-adept now clutching her hand with his own clammy, cold one. She squeezes it back.
"Almost Easter," she tells him. She gently, carefully disentangles herself, sitting up, propping herself up, still looking dazed and not entirely in this world. "Oh, Charlie, you know it is," she tells him, almost chiding. "You can feel it, you were just scared to admit it."
Eileen is a bit drunk. She smiles benignly at him, pleased with him, and frankly pleased with herself. "Oh, that's funny. It's almost Easter and you said Jesus." She chortles.
Dane"I don't wanna be scared anymore."
Charlie holds on to her hand. Eileen disentangles herself and sits up, and he sits up with her, drawing from that link. A little more conviction now: "I don't."
And Eileen laughs about Easter, Jesus. Dane, who has since schooled his expression back to that firm neutrality he seems to practiced at, just quirks a rather humorless eyebrow at her, then looks at Charlie.
"We should take you back to the chantry," he says.
eileenShe lets him. She hadn't begun to pull away, not really, and she doesn't look unnerved when he follows her into a sitting position. She laughs. She then smiles, bright and warm, to hear what Charlie says. "Oh, that's awesome," she says. "Oh, Charlie, I'm so proud of you."
It could be condescending. The apprentice, the mid-twenties-ite, telling the war veteran adept that she's proud of him. Somehow it isn't. She seems relieved, and so glad, in part because she knows what would happen if Charlie were making a different choice. She hugs him, a tight squeeze, and rubs his back.
Dane says they should go to the chantry, and Eileen nods as she eases back. "He's right," she tells Charlie, and piece by piece, they can all feel her magic slowly dropping away, paint flaking off a canvas, til the world is a little less bright and loud and distracting. "I can call Cynthia ahead and they can get you a place set up to rest and maybe send this guy Aidan over, he has a pickup so he can get the plants for you. I don't think they'll all fit in our car,"
'our', she says,
"though maybe you could bring one or two smaller ones if you want." She tips her head. "Is there anything else you want to bring? Oh, I had some of your bourbon, I hope you don't mind. I'm actually pretty buzzed right now. Did I mention I'm a cultist? I think I alluded to it. My friend here is sooo not, though, so don't prejudge him too badly."
She twists around to look at Dane. "You haven't even introduced yourself," she scolds him, as though there's been half a second when it would have been appropriate to do so. "Also, I probably shouldn't drive this time. I mean I could, that spell has saved me from many a DUI, but you looked a bit green around the gills when I was working just now so I thought I'd offer."
DaneCharlie looks around his apartment. Perhaps he's so used to the mess, the wreck, that he barely even sees it any more. His eyes glide right over the wool blankets almost slippery with grime, the piles of crumpled noodle cups, the pile of laundry - dirty or clean, it doesn't even matter any more - that's been sitting in the corner since he simply lost the will to do even that tiny chore. He looks at the plants growing twisted and wild in the corners, though, and his face crumples a little. Eileen's right. They're alive, but they're not okay.
"I want to bring this one. And this one." He crawls over to them, crablike on his scrawny knees. "These two." He has in his hands a cactus and something that may have once been a small bonsai. He holds them out to Eileen, insistent. "These."
Dane's mouth twists. He pities Charlie. He's disgusted by him, too: that he let himself sink so far. It's an uncharitable feeling to have, but then again no one ever accused Dane of being kind.
"I'm Thomas Dane," he says. "I'm of the Order of Hermes, the House of Flame. If you're ready to go, Mr. Manteuffel, we'll escort you to the chantry." A pause. It takes effort for him to offer even this much empathy: "Where you'll be safe."
eileenShe just nods. "Charlie. Charlie, we'll get them all," she says, as he crawls over to one plant that becomes beautiful through twisting, binding, that lives and lives despite all of that abuse, and another plant that survives the harshest deserts, the longest summers, and makes sweet nectar inside of itself all the same.
Eileen sees those plants and her thoughts are of hope, of optimism, because these are signs of what Charlie still has in him. She pities him, too, but there's no disgust in it. She goes and helps him pick up the two plants in particular, cradling it as though it's very special to her, and gets to her feet as Dane is introducing himself.
"He has a very fast, very nice silver car," Eileen tells Charlie. "Don't let the fact that it's an Audi fool you, though, he's really not a total douchebag or anything. Oh, man, I stood up too fast. Thomas," she says, and puts the bonsai in his hands, physically takes his hands and wraps them around the pot to make sure it doesn't drop. She holds on there for a moment, his hands on the pot and her hands on his and the pot holding the dirt and the roots and the little tiny tree.
Steadying a moment later, Eileen exhales and gives a tiny shake of her head. The redness on her cheek has begun to turn purple, red, and brownish-yellow. It's a but swollen, but she doesn't seem to be bothered by any pain. "Whoosh," she says, and starts toward the door. "If I use any more magic tonight I'm gonna hurl," she warns, heading out into the hall, leaving both the adepts carrying plants.
DaneDespite that one is an Adept and the other an Apprentice, the balance has been curiously level between Dane and Eileen. One could argue she contributed far more to this outing than he had; at the least, their skills and talents and thoroughly opposite, thoroughly complementary. She lives so much in emotion and empathy. She senses so broadly and so deeply. She feels; she perceives. He simply does: linear, straightforward, powerful but narrow.
He does not really understand her. But he can respect her strengths, and he is not afraid to allow her to exercise them. He understands, at least, how necessary she was to this entire endeavor.
So: she stands too fast, and she gives him the plant to hold. He doesn't argue or bristle; does not consider it an impertinence. He takes the tiny tree. There is a moment there where her hands are on his, and he thinks strangely of the world tipping, growing too-bright; he thinks of that tantric sigh she gave before she drove his car like a goddamn maniac. She is not driving again, he thinks, momentarily and irrationally cranky when he was not in the immediate aftermath. His hands flex under hers,
and then she moves away.
"Let's go," Dane says to Charlie. And Charlie, hunched, emaciated, cradling his little cactus both protectively and needfully, shuffles out the door.
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