The last half of Chapter 4 – speculation about where things are sent from the old world

Larry went through that with both of us. He was made of stronger fibre than I. I took it out on the cop in the lobby at the hospital. Larry had to handle me, Fawn, and when Zhira was born, his daughter and keep a sane head on his shoulders. How he managed it I’ll never know. Now here we were with a very cryptic threat hanging over us, and one that could affect the whole of his family. So I swallowed my knee-jerk smartass remark and just nodded. I thought I saw Fawn give a faint sigh of relief.

“So, where do you think we should start?”

“Give me a day or two to think about it. I know Rynun isn’t a practical joker, but part of me really wants him to be pulling our collective legs. He said ‘war is for the young to fight,’ correct?”

Yeah, that’s right. He said that Fawn and I didn’t need him. He was just an old man that had a few tricks, and that wars are for the young to fight.”

Larry got hard-eyed as he listened. When I finished he leaned forward and to the side so his shoulder was against Fawn’s.

“Did you ever thing it wasn’t you he was talking about?”

“What do you mean? We’re younger than him.”

“Yes, but who here is younger than both of you.”

I had to stop and think. I didn’t want to come to the obvious conclusion because I just might tear my hair out. Larry had correctly pointed out another possibility. Zhira might be who Rynun was talking about fighting a war. She like Her mom and I, was younger than Rynun. I didn’t want to accept it, but I had to. She might have to fight a war. But if that was the case, how did we fit into the picture? Was it something we could change? If so, how? I was circling the same hole I dropped into yesterday. But now I was wanting to tear apart anyone or anything that threatened my niece, even if I had no clue what Rynun’s words were truly supposed to mean.

“I’ll put requests for information on sudden catatonia being reported” Fawn said quietly. “If we find more, we can start to put together a pattern on how these people with bottles operate and hunt. Mr Thensome was fairly focused on you, Fern so we didn’t get a clear picture of his tendencies. I hate the idea of more people dying, but unless we find a different way to corner these users, we’re stuck until more information comes to us.”

“That’s a hell of a lousy way to find out, Fawn.” The idea of waiting for people to die did not set well with any of us. For all we knew Zhira could be a target. Yes, Rynun might be talking about her fighting the ‘war’, but we just didn’t know. There had to be a way to figure it out.

“Larry, do you know any fortune tellers you consider legit?”

“Oh come on Fern!? Seriously?! Why not just call up a power and ask it?!”

Well, why not really? Larry’s glare turned to one of alarm as he watched me.

“Fern, I didn’t mean you should. Seriously. Forget that idea. There’ll be another way to do it.”

“You know more than I about it. We are running with no idea what’s going on. Asking a power at least gives us a starting point.”

“At what cost!? I remember what you said about that kidnapping and what you asked for help. That girl screwed up and you’re eaten up with guilt because she got ahead of herself and called that thing herself.” Larry was practically shouting across the small table at me. It was obvious to me that he had no desire or intention about calling up a power. And I’m certain he read in me at the same time I was bound and determined to do something, and that something was likely to be calling upon a power to help us.

What we could get for help had to be bargained for, so payment would have to be commensurate to the information gained. I had to be careful, because all the knowledge of what was happening wouldn’t help me a bit if a power decided to call in the bargain right away. Then it would either be pay up right then, or get turned into a little greasy spot for not upholding a promise made. Powers get testy and viciously creative in dealing with promise breakers. I did not ever intend to be one. If I screwed up, then something might happen to Zhira, or Fawn, or Larry. So not something to think about.

For me, the question was what kind of entity to call. The answer to me at least was obvious. Darkness. That of hidden places and hidden thoughts, and unknown futures. Like Megan had summoned. No, I did not want to summon a being of darkness. Magick the same. Entities of Magick are pretty much incomprehensible, and for good reason. Like darkness they’re a living breathing equivalent of a tactical nuclear device, only with intelligence and an agenda. Never ever deal with powers and yet here I was considering doing what I’ve constantly railed against; dealing with a power when you’re desperate. Yes I was desperate. Larry’s point had me thinking of Zhira having to fight something that I had set in motion. That’s not something any parent wants for their child. Mistakes should be the responsibility of the mistake-maker, not the family of.

I was still going through with it. Right now, appealing to a power seemed the only way to get a handle on what was happening. I needed to set this up carefully and with a lot of thought or I’d be as snared as Megan had been. I could call to the Darkness and see if another entity would answer, but there’s the old adage about the devil you know versus the one you don’t. Which would you prefer? The one I know is dangerous, devious, and frightening. It’s sole purpose from my limited experience with it and Megan was that it was working to drive Megan insane. By now she probably was. I know her mom blames me, and I can accept that building a circle in front of her germinated the idea to cal a power of her own.

No one pays enough attention to teenagers. They’re easily the most messed-up stage of humanity. Bodies are changing from child to adult, and the hormonal imbalances also make the mind more volatile and vulnerable to suggestion. Think about it, as a child you took on dares because it was fun and exciting, but even kids for the most part know when they’re in over their heads. Teens see it a challenge to their existence so they go all-in even if the little voice is saying that whatever they’re doing is a REALLY BAD IDEA. As I said there’s the devil you know and the one you don’t. In my case I’d prefer to delve into the unknown instead of taking the Darkness on and trying to free Megan.

Larry didn’t want to have anything to do with summoning an entity. He’d do it though because Fawn would help me if he didn’t. In terms of rooting about for secret knowledge or hidden things, the Darkness was probably the best choice for knowing. A close second would Secrets. If man can conceptualize an idea, there’s an entity for it. Whether that’s because a being created the entity because of their thoughts, or it already existed because the concept existed, well, that’s what’s driven more than a few scholars crazy trying to answer that. Let’s just say they exist and move on. Between Darkness and Secrets I suppose I should explain how I see them. I think it’s semi-safe to say the how the petitioner sees the entity has a lot to do with their scope of abilities.

Darkness is all sorts of hidden things to me, both remembered and forgotten. Secrets are things that are not physical for the most part, and are hidden within the person. So in a sense one is physical, external to the person, and the other mental and internal. You may see it different and for you the entity may be somewhat skewed from my view. The trouble is Darkness also encompasses fear of the dark, terror, isolation, and a number of other negative connotations. Larry knows a lot more than I. His take is that the entity encompasses those things and more, but because of our limited understanding, when we call an entity, we somehow limit it by how we set up the spell for petitioning.

The spell I made way back when was a general call, and I got a number of different entities that answered. Now this one is specific because my need was specific. I needed information. Specific information with specific limits. Fawn and I to start with. I wanted it about us, not about Zhira. So, that was one specific point. Number two, how are we linked. We’re sisters, and twins, fraternal like has been mentioned before.

That’s another possibility, but I was looking for something more to do with somethinge we were both involved in. That covered a lot of ground. Being with Fawn, Larry, and Zhira was good for the spirit, but not so good for thinking. Both Larry and Fawn had remained quiet when I went off into my little world and thought about things.

“Larry, is it a good chance that what this is about is something Fawn and I were in together? I don’t see how just being sisters gets Rynun to say what he did.”

“Fern, I think that’s a good idea to start, but it covers a lot of history. You two have been wrapped up in things since you were kids. For starters look at the spell that your Uncle Todd pulled you out of. That was supposed to have killed and resurrected you.” He started ticking off other happenings, like the case with Hervald Thensome and Ahiah, the Nephilim which we laid our parents to rest and broke the suspended spell. He was at it for ten minutes detailing each situation and how Fawn and I were caught up in it one way or the other. It was a long list and I think Fawn and I just sat there stunned at how much Larry remembered, all the way back to middle school when we first met.

Neither of us thought it weird at all at the time, but then we were the ones it happened to, and kids see what goes on around them as normal. Only when you get perspective and look at your life and someone else’s in comparison does the odd things begin to stand out. The stuff starting with Hervald though, all of it had been very out there on the weirdness scale. Magick makes everything odd, but not bugnuts crazy, usually. This has been kind of non-stop excepting this two year break since the good Reverend had manipulated me into kidnapping his niece from his brother and tried to sacrifice eighty-six men, women, and babies to some entity in the ground below the compound.

It’s scattered but not gone. Both Fawn and I know that. It also was another spot where we found out more about ourselves in ways we’d never done before. To get to the meat of the story is that we both have the ability to hold a huge amount of Magick in reserve like a battery. We can’t touch it ourselves, but it’s easy to pull from each other to power ourselves. We’re linked through Magick, but until the compound, it never occurred to us that we might be ‘made’ for each other beyond being just sisters.

What Larry was getting at seemed to be that maybe our link to what Rynun had said was between us. That didn’t explain the war, but explained to me why we might be the ones he was discussing or warning. Going on that premise, we were linked the moment the Magick and the demon worked to kill and resurrect us.

Doing some quick searching online got us Semjaza and Ahiah. Fallen Angel and Nephilim. Father and son. The father would gather power to free the son into the world and the son would then break the bonds that held his sire. Together they’d free all the others and come ravage the world and destroy man in an apocalyptic war. It’s a part of the Book of Enoch. In the book, they were bound to be forever suffering for spreading knowledge and mating with women. So we knew who, and kind of what and why. Where was pretty much unmentioned but because everything had happened around Halifax/Dayning we guessed where was here. None of that explained ‘how’ though. The book of Enoch was not terribly specific about those beyond Azazel and Semjaza being bound and held in the ‘Abyss of Fire’.

Some of you might be wondering about why Halifax. Well, If you were going to bind someone and put them away from the knowledge of men, you take them to the farthest place away, wouldn’t you? The farthest place away from and land mass would be one surrounded by water. Guess what two land masses fit that bill? That’s right, North and South America. So the guess is this is where they were imprisoned however long ago, probably before men found a way to get to the continents via the Alaska land bridge if you believe the anthropologists that wrote books about it years ago.

We needed to figure out how all of this was supposed to happen. It was late in the evening when we finally called a halt to brainstorming and online searches. I went home after giving Zhira one more hug. I needed it. I wished she was here to give me another after waking up to the news the next morning.