Necromanson (Beta) chapter 9

After a minute consulting Athena’s map and comparing it to the bus routes, they were on their way. The bus dropped them off a block from Zack’s house, leaving them standing on the sidewalk gawking as it rumbled away.

Zack’s house was visible from a distance. A mansion built of concrete and light. The sculptures surrounding the building melded into the concrete beneath them, looming over the perimeter of the building, setting Henry on edge. It stood to reason, if Zack’s office sculpture could come to life, then these guys probably could too.

Towering giants holding the chains of snarling dogs flanked the entryway, all immortalized in concrete. The dog’s shoulder’s rose to Henry’s breast, and its piercing eyes seemed to follow him as the humans walked in between them. Henry kept all his senses on high alert, waiting for the statues to come to life and pounce on them.

Henry considered destroying the statues before they could come to life, but shook his head a moment after considering it. Zack would respond to force with force. Guns blazing wasn’t the best way to handle this. Although blowing them up still had merit.

“If I had some C-4, or grenades,” Henry muttered to himself. With those, Henry could booby trap the statues, rigging them to detonate should they move. Not to mention, should they not need them, Henry wouldn’t waste valuable explosives. A sudden thought struck him, and Henry grabbed Athena, putting his other finger over his lips, the universal ‘be quiet, I’m going to do something clever’ hand sign.

As Athena watched, Henry sat down in the middle of the paved walkway leading to Zack’s mansion, narrowing his eyes and focusing on each of the statues that ringed the entire property. Henry focused on the ground beneath each of them, building up force like pulling back a rubber band in his mind. Henry pictured a landmine beneath the statue, and very carefully took the force he had accumulated, and invested it in the image, binding the stretched tight rubber band in his mind to the trigger of the mine.

Henry pulled his focus away from the statue, and something stayed with the concrete. The tense, stretched feeling seemed to fade from his senses, sliding away as he reoriented on the second. Henry repeated the process until each statue was rigged to blow. Probably, Henry thought to himself. Henry breathed out and stood, only a couple minutes having gone by. His legs were weaker than he expected, but their strength was slowly ebbing back into him.

“What was that?” Athena asked, watching her surroundings cautiously.

“I rigged the statues to explode if they move,” Henry said, facing the looming stone mansion ahead of them, like a highly decorated bunker. “I think. Coulda been wasting my time, but I guess we’ll find out.”

The two of them strode down the path to the mansion, unhindered by a gate or fence, the path to the front door lay open. Henry stood on the porch, took a deep breath, and rang the doorbell. A tone rang through the house that set Henry’s nerves on edge, it was like someone had created a silver bell so large that its tone carried into your teeth and bones. It flooded Henry’s mouth with an acrid taste, and he spat.

“Never tasted a sound before,” Henry said, stretching his aching jaw.

“You must have had a boring college career.” Athena said, also showing signs of discomfort.

“More rock and roll, less sex and drugs,” Henry said, keeping his eyes on the double doors in front of them.

As Henry was beginning to consider doing his lockpicking stunt, the door was opened. A tall blonde man with buzz cut hair answered the door, towering over Athena, and half a head taller than Henry.

“Yeah?” the man asked, his jaw moving as he chewed gum. He wore an extra large T-shirt that was almost insufficient to the task, stretched tight over his chest, paired with casual pajamas.

“We’re looking for Zack,” Henry said, looking up at the man, who watched him while placidly chewing his gum. “It’s about the Yellow River condo.” Athena ducked out from behind Henry, and her eyes widened with a gasp as she caught sight of the mountain blocking the door.

His eyes flickered to Athena and back to Henry. “Henry, right?” he asked. Henry nodded. The bruiser stepped away from the door, beckoning them inside. “Mr. Landon will be happy to see you.”

As they entered the house, concrete took on a whole new meaning, as the entire mansion seemed to be made of it, even the interior. The floor and walls had been washed in acid baths and laminated, bringing out swirling colors in the stone. The entire building felt nearly warm to the touch as Henry set aside his coat, as though they had stepped into some living thing

The man must have seen Henry leave his palm against the wall for a moment, as he spoke. “It’s the concrete, it keeps the temperature in here constant. It’s letting out the heat it accumulated throughout the day.” The blonde motioned to a table beside the door. “Gun here, if you don’t mind.”

“I do mind.” Athena bristled, her eyes unabashedly travelling up and down the man’s sculpted figure.

“The ‘if you don’t mind’ is a formality,” he said with a prize-winning smile. “Put your gun on the table.” His tone allowed nothing else. Athena grunted, and unstrapped the gun from her waist, putting the holster on the table.

“Probably yours anyway,” she muttered. Without acknowledging Athena’s words, he turned and led the way down the hall to the left, ducking beneath a staircase that lead to a higher level in the same direction.

As they walked, Henry began to have a sense of the enormous amount of power he was dealing with. The walls radiated with some unseen energy, travelling through the building like blood, pumping in time to an unseen heart. At the end of the hallway, their guide stopped in front of a dark wood door at odds with the minimalist nature of the mansion, with gilding and fanciful images dancing across the rich wood.

Their guide reached out and knocked twice, and a moment later, Henry heard Zack’s voice, muffled by the door, say “Come in.” the statuesque blonde opened the door, and stepped out of the way, allowing Henry to enter.

Zack was seated at a beautiful wood desk with a perfect gold circle set into the wood, ringed by arcane symbols. He twisted his body to look at the door, and his mouth hung open for a moment as Henry came into his view, his eyes flicked to Athena, stepping into the room and availing herself of the nearby couch.

Zack turned his gaze back to their guide, and with a nod, the massive man turned and walked away, closing the door behind him. “Nice digs,” Henry said, looking around the room.

While the walls and ceiling were still concrete, the furniture was of superior make. Athena relaxed into the couch beside the end table with a sigh, a wooden shelf filled with books behind her. on the other side of the room was a desk that looked like a hobbyist’s work station, with a fold out shelf, workspace, soldering equipment, a miniature lathe, and jeweler’s tools.

Zack turned to face Henry more directly, eyeing him appraisingly. “Let’s get on the same page here,” he said, throwing his arm over the back of his chair and leaning on it. “how much do you know?”

Henry ran his gaze over the books on the shelf, picking out titles like Fuller’s Theory on Arcane Physics, and… “Zachory Landon’s Empirical deconstruction of Magic?” Henry said, meeting Zack’s eye. “Seem’s a little…”

“Grandiose,” Athena supplied from the chair she relaxed in, before picking up the book beside the end table and beginning to read it.

“For a guy to have his own book on his shelves,” Henry finished, while Zack glowered at him.

“Henry, I can think of no other reason you’d come here other than to settle accounts,” Zack said, hoisting himself to a stand. Athena carefully watched him above the binding of the book, her whole body tensed. “But if that’s going to happen, we have to exchange information.”

Henry glanced away from the books, taking in the steely look in the old man’s eye. “I think we can skip a lot of questions,” Henry said, turning to face him. “We can skip why, because who wouldn’t want that kind of power?” Henry took a step closer. “And we can skip how, because I was there.”

“Obviously you wanted to snuff out everyone who worked on the project, quietly,” Henry said, taking a step closer. “So I guess my only question, Zack, is what the hell Charles fucking Manson was doing there, and why he’s some immortal demon preaching on the midday news to a stadium full of people, and how you plan on fixing this clusterfuck!” Henry didn’t notice his voice rising until he was shouting in front of the man he had thought was a friend.

Zack grimaced, his lips downturned partly in disgust and partly in anger, stalked toward the bookshelf, and snatched out a tome on the upper shelves. “It was a setup,” Zack said, slamming the book down on his desk and flipping through the pages.

“imagine that building as a battery attached to a flash bulb. Normally it would trickle charge for a few decades before being used, and when triggered it would grant a wealth of power to the man standing in the center. I kept the purpose of the building a secret from everyone, but someone from The Family divined its purpose, and lied to my more power-hungry men.”

“So when Manson was sent to the hospital by his own design,” Zack said as he flipped through the pages of the book. Henry noticed picture after picture of monstrous beings flip past. Those idiots thought they had an opportunity too good to be true on their hands, having the madman so close at hand, and so they carried it out, never once doubting the motivation of the one who gave them the information.”

“So you’re saying you didn’t want to kill everyone involved in the project?” Henry asked, watching Zack with narrowed eyes. Zack shook his head.

“Most of the people I hired for the job had tortured pasts, night terrors, hauntings,” Zack said, looking up at Henry. “Like you.” housing these people would help charge the battery, and the building would gradually filter out the negative taint of their energy, and allow me to imbue myself with pure magic.”

“so, killing a bunch of people overloaded your filter, and supercharged your battery, and I assume, spent your flash bulb?” Henry said, working inside the old man’s metaphor.

Zack nodded “The negative energy coalesced into Manson, creating this,” Zack said, pointing to a picture in the book. A gaunt figure stood over a woman, gripping her with massively oversized hands as it locked sharklike teeth embedded in an enormous mouth around her shoulder. Henry leaned closer to the hand drawn picture, his eyes widening.

The monster in the picture was forcing the naked woman down on a gigantic cock as it fed on her. Blood flowed down her legs and down her chest as the drawn woman’s head lolled back with an expression somewhere between pleasure and pain. “Maculat Mulieres,” Zack said solemnly, “Big hands, Big mouth, big cock, born to prey on the fairer sex, usually from rapists and pimps who die in places of power.”

Zack cocked his head to the side as he studied the gruesome picture. “Although this particular one had a lot more power juiced into him than your typical one,” Zack met Henry’s eye.

“I’ve tried to kill him already. Shots to the heart and beheadings all should have worked, usually these things aren’t the target of a damn immortality ritual.”

Zack sat down in his chair with a sigh, “I’m going to get to name a new species of creepy crawly if I live through this, probably something unoriginal, like Maculat Mulieres Immortalis.”

“I want to ask,” Henry said, closing the book. “What happened to me?”

Zack craned his neck up at Henry, his white eyebrows furrowed in inquiry. “What do you mean?” in response, Henry made the book in front of Zack float with his mind. Zack shot out of the chair, his eyes wide. He turned to Henry, his eyes focusing on him with an uncomfortable intensity. “Tell me everything that happened.” Zack guided Henry deeper into the room, sitting down on a well-padded chair that faced another, a short table between them, the weathering on the chairs matched by their elegance suggested that many an important conversation was had in them.

Henry sat across from Zack, and as Athena listened from across the room, he described the events the night of the ritual. Zack listened, his mouth in a frown of concentration, his eyes locked on Henry’s face. As he covered the story Athena already knew, she stood up and began perusing the shelf lined with books, finally settling on three and setting them on the end table beside her couch before flopping down and opening the first.

“Those are sorted alphabetically,” Zack called over his shoulder as she sat down. “I’d appreciate it if they were returned to the same place you found them. Athena nodded silently, flipping through the pages, concentration evident on her face.

“Lawyers,” Zack said, shaking his head as he faced Henry again. “They make some of the best wizards, simply because they combine a tolerance for dry reading, using information as a weapon, and manipulating people. Usually not public defenders, though.”

Henry raised an eyebrow, and Zack sobered for a moment. “What happened to you, shouldn’t have. It’s true that you spilled blood, and stood in the center of the building at the right time, but that’s not all it takes. You would need some way to harness or direct the siphoned energy, a catalyst. You shouldn’t be able to do that,” Zack pointed at the book. ”Just by thinking about it.”

Henry leaned back, thinking. It struck a sour note with him that Zack had not once referred to the people killed as ‘people’ but more than anything, he needed to know. “I have a recurring nightmare,” Henry said, carefully selecting each word before they left his mouth. “About three men whose deaths were my fault.” Zack’s eyes narrowed, and he leaned forward, his attention fully focused on Henry.

A resounding sneeze rang through the silence, and Zack turned to see Athena leaning away from one of the books with her face scrunched up, stifling a follow-up sneeze. Zack’s brows lowered, and Henry felt the lights dim for a moment, an icy hand gripping his heart, and then it was gone.

“Do not,” Zack said, his voice low. “sneeze on those books.” Athena nodded, setting aside the book and blowing her nose on a napkin from her pocket. Zack watched her for a moment longer, a growl that Henry felt more than heard rumbled from the older man in front of him before he turned back to Henry. “Continue.”

Henry watched Zack for a moment longer before nodding, and describing his meeting with the men haunting him, his eyes lighting up with wonder. Finally he spoke. “So here’s what I think happened,” he said, his eyes dancing in amusement. “The spirits that haunted you acted as the starter for a growing crystal, absorbing the energy that washed over you as the ritual came to a climax. But they became weighed to the earth by that very power, and unable to escape from the demon, bound to you as they were, and so they left the collected energy with you by granting a wish.” Zack sat back, his hand over his lips as he contemplated.

“This is the first time I’ve heard of such a thing happening,” Zack said, shaking his head. “Wishing for magic to be real. What a vague wish, Henry, you know that had you wished for something stupid, those spirits could have ruined your world, especially if they didn’t like you. but wishing for something like that, basically wrote them a blank check, I’m surprised you’re standing here.”

Henry shrugged. “I didn’t know I was making a wish,” he said, clasping his hands together. “They said they didn’t hold anything against me anymore, and wished me luck when they left. Except for Halil.”

“Makes sense,” Zack said, nodding. “You were very lucky they decided to forgive you.”

“Except for Halil,” Henry said.

“Except for him,” Zack agreed. Zack leaned back in his chair, looking Henry up and down. “What I think happened is your vague wish manifested inwardly. Magic already exists in the world, and so instead you became magical.”

“Soo…” Henry said, glancing at Zack sideways.

“So you’re no longer human, you’re probably a magical creature now, like a faerie, or a unicorn,” Zack said, standing up.

“Unicorns exist?” Henry asked, his eyes widening.

Zack’s expression soured. “Yeah, but they’re… a little strange. Follow me, I’ve got some tests we can run to prove my hypothesis.” Zack glanced over to where Athena was reading, and called them both over to his workbench.

“Okay, let’s get the evil ones out of the way first,” Zack said with a sigh as he sat down in front of the station. He reached out and grabbed a black flask with a cross on it shaking its contents with a fluid sloshing noise.. “Holy water. Hold out your hand.”

Henry held out his hand, raising his eyebrow as the old man sprinkled water from the flask on his hand, to no effect.

“Here’s some silver,” Zack said, pressing a bar onto Henry’s dripping hand. after a moment of nothing happening, he grunted and removed the cold metal from Henry’s skin, leaning to retrieve another flask. Henry’s eyes widened when scarlet liquid spilled from the opaque glass onto his palm, dribbling down between his fingers onto the workstation.

“Virgin blood.” Zack said, watching Henry closely.

“You poured virgin blood,” Henry said, staring down at the red liquid spreading along the creases in his palm. “On my hand.”

“Yeah, feel anything?” Zack asked with a raised brow. Athena choked back a laugh.

“What the hell am I supposed to feel?!” Henry demanded, his hand twitching with suppressed indignation.

“Well, since you’re not licking it up or being burned by it, we can safely assume you aren’t a vampire or demon,” Zack said matter-of-factly, tossing Henry a rag. Henry snatched the rag out of the air and wiped his hand off.

Zack sat back in the chair, and put his fingers on his lips, his brows furrowed in concentration. “Let’s narrow this down,” he said, reaching out to retrieve a fine gilded compass. With the swiftness of decades of practice, he drew a perfect circle on the table and drew fine script around the outside, completing his task in a matter of minutes.

“Put your hand here.” Zack said, tapping the circle. At Henry’s wary gaze, he sighed. “It’s not going to do anything, it’s like a litmus test. It will change color depending on what you are, look.” Zack put his hand on the circle. The thin lines began to glow with a dark brown color. “See, human.” Zack motioned Athena to place her hand on the circle.

Without hesitation, Athena exchanged his hand for hers, and the brown shifted a little more orange, but otherwise stayed brown. “Got a temper, I see,” Zack mused.

“Alright,” Henry said, gently moving Athena aside. He put his hand down on the circle, setting his palm against the cool wood surface. The lines burst with white light, tinted the slightest bit blue at the corner of Henry’s vision. Henry pulled his hand off the wood and blinked, the script around the edge of the spell slowly fading from his vision.

“Okay,” Henry said, still blinking. “What does that mean?” Henry glanced at Zack, and thought he saw the old man pale against the dazzling spots in his eyes.

Zack glanced up at Henry, and back down to the circle, as if doubting his eyes, before he sighed. “It means an idea has taken residence inside you,” Zack said. The old man stood and stared up at Henry. “Your body is playing host to the manifestation of an abstract concept, an Anima Cogitationis.”

Henry stared down at the old man for a moment in confusion. “Is that bad?” Athena asked, catching Henry’s attention.

Zack glanced at her and shook his head. “Not generally, no,” he said. “Unless the Anima Cogitationis is in some way harmful to the person it is bound to, like the concept of self-mutilation, for example.” Henry reeled back at the thought, his skin crawling.

“Don’t worry,” Zack chuckled. “Whatever idea took root inside you is all to the good, allowing you to use magic without any training or focus, my god…” Zack’s eyes gazed off into the distance, before his attention snapped back to Henry’s face. “Would you like to become my apprentice, Henry?”

“Why do you ask?” Henry asked, gazing down at the man inexpressively.

“Entirely selfish reasons,” Zack said. “You become my apprentice, become the most accomplished wizard in millenia, and I benefit by association. Making a book float in the air seems small, but it takes years of practice and a focus to manage. With some basic techniques and training, you’d be journeyman level in six months, a master in a handful of years, and in a few decades, you could have the rest of the magic community by the balls.” Zack looked up at Henry expectantly.

“Community?” Henry asked. Zack nodded his head, a smile spreading across his face. “And I bet just wandering around doing whatever I want with magic would bring the wrath of god down on my head, secret societies and all that.”

Zack nodded again, his smile becoming a grin. “I always liked you, Henry. I think I know why now, you pick things up quick.”

“I’ve had a lot of time to think about it the last couple days, actually.” Henry said. He met Athena’s eyes momentarily before he turned his gaze down to meet Zack’s. “Alright, Zack, I’ll be your apprentice. On the condition that you show me the ropes, so I don’t get killed or turned into a tree or something.” Henry said, putting his hand out. Zack shook his hand, his gnarled fingers squeezing with surprising strength.

“We’ll have to go over the plan in the morning, but for now…” Zack said, glancing at an elegant clock adorning the far wall. “You’ll need a place to stay for the night.” Zack led them to a wing on the opposite side of the mansion, waving his hand down the hall imperiously. “Pick any room you want, I’ll meet you in the lobby tomorrow at nine. I’m an early riser.”

Henry nodded at the closest door. “This one’s fine for us,” Henry said, opening the door and stepping inside, Athena close behind him.

“For both of you?” Zack asked curiously before he shrugged. “Good night, I’ll see you in the morning, and the three of us can discuss Ms. Athena’s disposition then.” Henry put on his best sheepishly embarrassed face as he closed the door, and Athena for her part blushed and looked down at the floor.

Henry saw Zack turn away with a knowing smile just before the door latched closed. Henry stood in front of the door for a minute, listening to the sound of the old man’s footfalls fade into the distance. When he couldn’t hear anything more, Henry whirled to face Athena.

“That guy scares the ever loving shit out of me,” Henry whispered quietly, as though he expected Zack to still be listening at the door.

“Skeevy,” Athena whispered in agreement, nodding.

“We need to get the fuck out of here,” Henry whispered. “The moment he heard about the crystalizing ghosts or whatever, he looked at me like a starving man looks at a ham sandwich.”

“With mustard and mayo,” Athena whispered in agreement, nodding.