[Sodium_noir] At the Temple

[Liz Oleksyn]

JOINT POST  Liz & Jennie

Jack, Christine
Hybrid, Orphan
Temple of the Five Dragons
late evening

Jack’s smirk evaporates as he watches her raise the
cup to her lips.  His gaze lowers, avoiding
Christine’s.  Scared. Confused. Out of my depth.
Pretty familiar ground they seem to be sharing.

He takes a deep breath, exhaling slowly, measuring his
reply.  “Oh, I don’t know...transmuting from secretary
to magi is pretty fucking intense. That is what you’re
saying, yeah?  Awakened?  Must have been traumatic
enough for you to polish off most of that vodka.” 
Jack nods at the bottle.  

Christine shrugs lightly, her expression shuttered.
Awakening? Losing everything she gave a damn about? A
single bottle of vodka don't even begin to cover it. 

The tilted smile returns, but Jack's  eyes remain
fixed on a distant spot in the spartan room, somewhere
past Christine, and they dart away when she tries to
recapture his gaze.

“Why did I?” He echoes. “To get back what I’d lost.”

Jack shifts his weight on the bed.  To Christine, his
manner seems strangely like that of a child
reluctantly confessing to a parent that they, in fact,
were responsible for hurling the baseball that broke
the kitchen window.  

“I am...”  He sighs again, frustrated, searching for
the right words.  “I guess you’d say ‘spirit’, but
that’s like calling a cat an ‘animal’.  There’s a
million different kinds and the word’s far too vague
to actually describe what I am.  You know now that
there’s another side to this world and the inhabitants
are nothing like humans.  My memory of that
place...was taken from me, along with the magicks I
knew.  Akril erased all of it when he forced me
into...”  Jack raises his wrapped hand and places it
on his chest.  “...into this body. Permenently.  He
was the only one who could undo this and now he’s
dead. “

Christine listens, tries to understand. He is a spirit
which is not the same as a ghost. Unlike, the late
Danny Ithaca, 'Jack' never has been human . . .
before. But the 64 ooo dollar question is: is he human
now? Now he is effectively trapped in a form which
increasingly defines him. He may have started out by
being artificially grafted into flesh but it seems
like he is growing into the shape of it, taking on
it's material signature as his own. Perhaps it is
truer to say that Jack is a hybrid being.  So, he's
part - if not all - human?

"This ritual with the self mutilation . . . You were
trying to get back to the spirit world? Or you were
trying to get back your magick?" asks Christine,
keeping her voice casual. 

“Trying to get back my magick
 and accept the reality
of this imprisonment.  To Akril, I was nothing more
than a prototype - an experiment to see if he could
really master the ritual. I think he wanted to bring
something from the other side - something potent and
profoundly evil - and bind it to a human body. But
that was too risky. He had to summon something far
less dangerous the first time, something easier to
control.”

Jack almost looks embarrassed about the implication,
but his expression grows darker a moment later. “Keep
one thing in mind - Akril never practised anything but
the blackest magic, was only interested in entities as
horrifically twisted as he was. Wherever he summoned
me from, it was someplace hellish and cold and had a
darkness he found... comfortable.” He pauses, shaking
his head. “Dunno why I’m saying that, especially after
asking you not to be afraid of me.”

Christine flicks the empty vodka bottle absently, her
nails tapping a delicate rhythm. No, she thinks, a
trifle grimly. I don't know why you're telling me
either. A sop to whatever basic code you adhere to? So
that, later, you will be able to say, 'I did warn
you.' Christine silently looks up to meet Jack's
restless, troubled stare.*

He forces a smile, an attempt at reassurance.
“Anyway... I started pouring over Akril’s library,
hoping to find some way to re-learn what I’d lost.
Nothing seemed to work - incantations, amulets,
spells, potions. I must have looked like a fucking
Hogwarts reject.” Jack's laugh comes easier now,
warming to the discussion. “And then it hits me.
There’s a question I’d never asked: what’s the
difference between what I used to be and what I am
now? This...” He points a finger at himself. “This
body, this flesh and blood. And it dawns on me - this
is the key.”

Jack whispers conspiratorially. “I found a book on
sorcery, mostly blood magic. Carved the first symbol
onto my arm, waited for it to heal.  A few nights
later, I sat in front of a fireplace, retraced the
lines with a knife, put my hand over it, and flung the
blood into the hearth. Lo and behold – flames ignited.
Nearly singed my eyebrows.”

It’s clear he’s fairly pleased with his
accomplishment.

Christine cannot quite keep her dismay out of her
voice. 

"You need to cut yourself to make stuff happen? You
did all this to yourself," Christine gestures briefly
to Jack's bandaged hands and white-swathed body, "to
obtain power?" She looks at him intently. "You must
have thought you needed it pretty bad," Christine's
coppery eyebrows contract. She has a sudden vivid
memory, not her own but one shared involuntarily by
Jack when Christine had first touched his feverish
mind in the street: a thunder-faced asian man shouting
harshly into Jack's face. Had this been Jack's boss?
The Khan? 

"Because of Akril?" she asks.


TBC

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