* * *
A short drive to the outskirts of town brought me to a five-storey, firmly middleclass apartment block. Located near enough to the city for quick access to shops, but not so near as to be drowning in noise and pollution, I liked the place before taking a step inside.
Benny’s apartment was on a corner of the fifth floor, looking out onto the street.
My first impression was that the place was remarkably well arranged for a bachelor pad, with classy décor and well placed artistic touches in every room. Framed prints, cleverly positioned lamps and even a few healthy pot plants; it all had the feel of professionalism and thoughtful care.
See the magic just below the surface.
I had almost pegged Benny as an enthusiast interior decorator, but it soon became evident that the place had recently been shared by a feminine presence, now gone. Sadly the lady’s efforts were slowly being dismantled with her absence. The living room had once been expertly arranged to draw attention to a pleasant coffee table. Now, the chairs had recklessly been shifted out of position, presumably for a better view of the TV. And after a bit of poking around I found what I assumed to have once been a kitchen of considerable presentation. But alas, it was now falling victim to neglect in the form of piled dishes and dirty countertops. The aforementioned mature cleaning lady had obviously not been in that day.
I realised I was painfully hungry and decided to take up the fridge raiding offer. Not too surprisingly, there was little in the way of healthy meals, not that I would’ve had any idea how to cook a healthy meal. I settled for a sandwich, then found the spare bedroom and declared it my own. All in all an upgrade from my previous living arrangements.
I took the bottle of painkillers from my pocket and placed them on the bedside table. It was only with vague awareness I realised the amount of relief at having them along for the ride. At least I could be certain of a few peaceful nights’ sleep.
It was a few hours till Benny would return and figured it was a good time to prepare for the showdown with my demon. How I was supposed to go about this was anyone’s guess.
Regardless, I sat cross legged on my freshly made up bed and did my best.
Be the mirror that is your demon’s bane.
Great words, very profound sounding - What this meant was a mystery.
There is something about your father’s death that you are not accepting, or choosing not to accept.
The whole memory was now a complete mess, accepting it was the least of my worries. Getting it straight seemed more pressing.
I took a deep breath, found my place of calm and called up the day in question. There was confusion in my mind’s eye at first, as if internal television channels were receiving mixed signals. A bad sign; after effect of the recently dispelled barrier.
Then once again I was presented with the image of grandmother’s expressionless face. She was watching.
To my left, my mother was crouched by a motionless body, her mouth moving, but forming no words.
What were those words again? What had she said, kneeling there by my father? I had remembered some of them earlier, but now even those were lost to me.
Too long ago, how could I possibly hope to remember specific words?
No. Bullshit. I knew. And not only was I sure I knew, I became certain that the words were of significance. This was what Selena had been talking about. I needed to know…
Focus increased, my mother’s face fell into finer clarity. What had once been an expression of anguish and loss had now changed, becoming instead an expression of anger. The picture had evolved; shifting towards reality.
Her mouth moved, lips created words, tongue sounded out the letters. What was she saying?
I moved closer, straining my eyes to lip read the dialogue…
“You didn’t have to do that, mother! Now look at him!”
Something gave way as if a mute button had been depressed. The words were loud and clear.
“If you kept him under control this would not be a problem,” gran replied.
“You have no right to touch him,” my mother snapped. She turned and threw a venomous look over her shoulder, receiving nothing but a scowl from gran in return.
“You let him slip,” gran barked, “That’s putting everyone at risk. You know the rules, Liza. You got lazy, this is what happens.”
“Nonsense! Absolute nonsense! He was no harm to anyone and you know it!”
“For goodness sake, stop acting like it’s the end of the world.”
“Mommy…” This word had come from me; a mewling whimper from the lips of an eight year old.
The two faces turned towards me, as if just realising I was in the room.
“What is it, Jet?” my mother asked.
“What’s wrong with dad?”
“He’s dead.”
I stared. Or rather, the eight year old version of me stared.
I had understood the word perfectly well, but for some reason the meaning did not sink home. “Dead?”
“Yes.” My mother regarded me with unsympathetic eyes.
“Oh.”
There was another long pause. Then, with considerably more dexterity than she was presently capable, gran stood and walked towards me.
“You’re playing with fire,” she growled under her breath. One hand reached towards me….
I opened my eyes.
CLUNK. The puzzle piece fell into place.
How, for the life of me, could I have overlooked that? My father had been a slave. It was the most obvious thing in the world. I guess in my defence, it had taken a full grasp of recent events and revelations. The puzzle piece had been sitting precariously, just waiting to fall at the right moment.
And now, with just a few moments of reflection, the picture was starting to become clearer.
My father had been a mental slave.
Worse, it seemed my father had been a mental slave with about as much value to my dear mother as a goldfish.
You know the rules…
The rules? Of course, there had to be rules. No sitting on the couch, no messing on the carpet, no humping the guest’s legs.
Oh no. No… no… no…
A barrage of memories flashed before my eyes; snippets of my youth that had been held with such affectionate regard.
Going to the beach on holiday, my father driving, old fashioned sunglasses perched on his face and a smear of sunscreen across his nose.
Awaking early for my first day of school, my father waiting with a sympathetic smile and bowl of sugary cereal.
Evenings spent watching TV, my father laughing heartily at the 8pm sitcom, my mother and me laughing more at him than the actual TV show.
“It’s okay, Jet. Just tell me what happened.”
I shuffled my feet, unable to meet his eyes.
“The ball,” I muttered sheepishly.
“You were playing with it inside, huh?”
“‘Yes…”
Oh God. Who am I if not me?
My father, the man who had raised me for eight years of my life, the man who had been obsessed with making the perfect fire, the man who had laughed too hard at cheesy sitcoms, had been nothing more than an obedient, mindless lapdog.
None if it had been real. None of it had been genuine. My childhood was a lie.
Without warning the abyss yawned again; hungry and inviting. Insanity. My hold on reality was becoming ever more tenuous. I was starting to slip. Who was I? Who was I, if not the man raised by mother and father? Who am I if not me?
I was shaking like a leaf, my entire body rippling with vibrations.
Rattle, rattle, rattle…
That was the door. There was something rattling the handle, no prizes for guessing what.
Rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle!
Now my breathing was rasping through my teeth, vision starting to contract down into a tunnel. I was slipping ever deeper; sinking, sliding down into the darkness like an all-consuming body of water.
&nb
sp; Who am I if not me?
Get a grip, get a grip. Keep it together, find a safe place, ground yourself.
Grasping frantically, I reached out for my place of calm, only to find it fluttering and darting about, rocking on the rapids of a suddenly restless sea.
Rattle, rattle, rattle! Thump, thump, thump!
The door was shaking on its hinges, as if a balled fist were smashing against the exterior.
Keep it together, keep it together…
With a last frantic effort I drew in a deep breath, summoning every ounce of my will and attempted to push back the abyss.
Push it back. Push it back, hold it off, put it out and give it no attention. Feed it no spirit. Don’t allow it access.
Slowly, gradually, like attempting to lift an impossible weight with my shoulders; I fought against the abyss.
The memories retreated and faded into obscurity, pressure eased and the abyss shrank back into the nothingness from where it had originated.
Then, without fully understanding what I was doing, I chose to forget. The information was not struck from my mind forever, but disconnected. It was my first self-inflicted spell. And not the last I would perform in coming years.
Success.
A wave of calm descended over me.
Tentatively the anxiety drained away. The weight lifted from my shoulders, dissolved and vanished.
Rattle… rattle…
The door gave two final shakes and went still.
My breathing began to slow and regain its normal patterns, ushering in the sweetest relief I had ever felt. I took a moment, relishing the cool sweat that dripped from my chin.
A resounding victory; control maintained where it may have previously been impossible. The abyss stared down, dominated and contained.
Despite myself, I managed a smile, invigorated by my achievement.
Sure I was aware that the solution was temporary at best, a sort of DIY-duct-tape fix. Something like building up a sandbank to ward off an encroaching flood. But it was the best of which I was capable without Selena’s assistance. I was resisting an inevitable climax.
And that concluded the mental preparation part of my demon showdown.
However there was one other thing I wanted to practice before the big day. And it involved making things go boom. My unforgivable miss and unintentional remodelling of a house had not slipped my mind.
I stood, left my new room and stepped out onto the balcony; an area that now served as home to a few bushy pot plants. It was not what I would have called a perfect arena to practice destructive abilities. But really, lack of options forced innovation.
I was aware that shooting off raw Spirit was illegal, dangerous, and led to insurance fraud. And yes, I was also aware that Selena had made no mention that having the ability practiced was necessary. After all, it was not my demon’s intention to kill me, only to feed on my Spirit. But after witnessing Sebastian the mentor mauled to death, my going into the showdown completely “unarmed” seemed foolish.
I glanced over the steel railing and spotted a handful of pedestrians far below, going about their daily business. It seemed high enough that my spells would go undetected, and with only a pinch of trepidation I drew up my Spirit. The first time I would be doing so intentionally.
Reacting to the mere thought I demanded its presence my Spirit rose to the occasion. My skin tingled, body sang with invisible vibrations, and then raw energy was crackling into life across arms and chest.
Easy enough. But now; some advanced techniques.
I focused on my left hand. As expected the energy responded, flowing like a living liquid to the indicated location. Experimentation revealed that the same process worked for any part of my body; leg, arm, foot and even a single finger. And furthermore, I found that the concentration of energy could be increased, allowing for a virtual nova of Spirit to be gathered on a fingertip. There is no need to point out the sobering emotions that come with having the equivalent of a small bomb’s worth of energy sitting on your fingertip.
After an hour of rolling the energy from hand to hand and playing with its intensity I felt confident enough to move on; eager to try turning raw energy into projectile.
I chose a section of empty sky as target, allowing for a major margin of error, and gathered an orb of energy in the space directly in front of my eyes.
I played a little, finding that the orb could be expanded, contracted, and concentrated. Interestingly it became clear that size did not correspond to power. It was possible to create an orb the size of a pea that represented nearly half my complete reserve of Spirit.
I reduced the concentration of the orb and let it loose at a cloud. It sang off, emanating a pleasant electric shushing sound, and petered out after about one hundred and fifty meters.
I had just gathered up my second test orb when I heard the front door open behind me. I turned to see Benny entering. He grinned, tossed his car keys onto the living room table and approached.
“Hello, Jet,” he said, his voice tinged with a mocking note of reprimand, “Shooting off illegal magic, I see.”
“Trying to get the hang of this raw energy bolt thing,” I replied, “Not my strong point at the moment.”
“Ah, well. It comes with practice.”
He stepped out onto the balcony beside me and gazed down, searching the street.
“See that.”
“What?”
He pointed. “There.”
I followed his line of sight but spotted a down-on-his-luck man across the street, standing with back against a wall, “The homeless guy?”
“That’s it.”
Benny was taking aim, closing one eye and lining up extended finger with the target. Spirit popped into life on his fingertip. “Watch this.”
I hesitated, wondering if I should intervene. Could a hit at this distance kill a man? Injure him? It must have been easily two hundred meters. But regardless if it killed or injured, using the homeless as target practice seemed extreme.
“Benny…”
“Hush. Watch.”
He deliberated, took a deep breath and let loose the sizzling bolt. I followed it with my eyes, watching the shimmering speck as it sailed down into the street. At about half the distance I lost track and watched the man, waiting for impact.
It took two more seconds before the bolt struck, exploding a Styrofoam cup held in the man’s left hand. Coffee sprayed, the poor fool jumped in fright.
“Impressed?” Benny asked, turning to me with a gaudy smile.
“Yes,” I replied, uncertain of how such a thing was possible. The cup had been a target so small it was barely even visible. “How?”
“You’re still thinking like a novice, Jet. Let your energy know where you want it to go, then just release. Now, get ready, we’ve got a poker game to attend.”