[Sodium_noir] At the Temple

[Liz Oleksyn]

Jack, Christine
Suspect Entity, Bona Fide Alcoholic
Temple of the Five Dragons

Jack returns her stare, perturbed, at first, that she
would question his reasons for taking such extreme
measures. Then, the mention of Akril’s name sends
his thoughts drifting away to what his existence had
meant only hours before and how changed his world was
now.

“I still can’t believe he’s dead...”

The words were spoken as much to Christine as they
were to the air that surrounded them, his pale blue
eyes staring at a distant scene in a different room.

“I knew the moment it happened. From the time of my
Binding, there was a tether between us - a constant
reminder of my slavery. I was sitting on the floor of
the warehouse when I felt the tie sever.” Jack drew
a deep breath and exhaled it. “It felt
wonderful...and I was terrified.”

Suddenly aware of Christine’s presence, Jack comes
out of his reverie. “Yeah, all this because of
Akril.  Believe me , if there’d been a far easier,
less self-destructive  method of magic, I’d
certainly be using that. It seems blood works as a
conduit to my true self, taps into whatever remains of
what I was.  Seems strange, don’t you think, that
nothing else worked?”

He shifts his weight again, attempting to find a more
comfortable position on the thin mattress.  

“You’ve no idea what kind of a monster he was,
Christine. You don’t know what he did... what I saw.
 I’d have done anything to free myself. It was worth
every drop of my blood to steal back some of what he
took.”

Christine shies away from acknowledging - even to
herself - how much she understands about the potency
of blood and the dark allure of self destructive acts.
But unlike Jack, Christine bears no evidence. Mara's
kiss leaves no scars, at least not on the outside. And
Christine totally relates to Jack's jubilation and his
terror. She too is finding that her bonds have been
severed with a double-edged blade and she does not
know how to deal with her freedom. Mostly she feels
not so much free as lost; aimless; pointless. Definite
similarities between Jack and his situation, Christine
and hers. But Mara never abused Christine, always
shielded her from the more monstrous elements of the
Vampire world.   

"I don't know much about Akril although I have heard
his name," comments Christine. "An ex-cop friend spoke
of him as a gangster, a Tong leader. I know that he
was a murderer and a cop killer. I didn't know he was
also a sorcerer . . . Awakened."

Christine glances at Jack, "I don't know anything much
about being Awakened either but enough, I guess, to be
pretty damn scared by the idea of a bad guy like Akril
let loose with a bunch of magick. So, like you, I'm
glad he's dead and gone." 

Christine is aware that her words seem to linger in
the space between herself and Jack, a faint echo, as
though the air currents have been disturbed. Christine
pauses uneasily, looks across at Jack again from her
cross-legged position on the floor beside his bed. She
studies his face, oddly shadowed by the glow of the
small nearby lamp. It's a face full of secrets,
haunted by darkness. He looks like a man but isn't
really and sometimes he sounds more like a child than
anything else. A child who has been through hell.
Christine looks away from his tentative, questioning
stare. Who is she to judge? And how much, really, does
she want or need to know about what he has seen and
what he has done? How much guilt and darkness can she
herself actually deal with right now? She tilts the
empty vodka bottle on it's base and watches the
buttery lamp light slip and slide across it's glassy,
curved surface as she turns it lightly with her finger
tips. 

"How much do you want to share, Jack?" she asks
carefully. "I'm here to listen and I guess you can
trust me but question is,  am I going to need to go
get myself another bottle?" 

Jack’s attention veers off again, and he begins to
find an examination of the details of the weave of his
blanket infinitely more imperative than delving into
his memories. A few moments become a few minutes of
silence.

Finally, he closes his eyes and sinks his head back
into the pillows. “Akril wasn’t Awakened. It was
his biggest misery. He tried everything he could to
force it upon himself, but it never happened. His
grandfather was a magi – he built this Temple -
really powerful guy and the complete opposite of his
grandson in character and beliefs. How Akril could
have strayed so far from that is anyone’s guess.
Stories I heard say that, out of desperation, he
turned to some Very Bad Shit – evil, hell-spawn
types – in hopes of learning from them. Obviously, a
lot of what they were rubbed off on him, ‘cause he
wasn’t the same after that. Akril’s grandfather
taught him what he could and some say Akril surpassed
the old man in terms of skill. It was only hedge magic
though. Must have frustrated the hell out of him.
Maybe that’s why he took it out on everyone around
him.”

Jack’s eyelids open and he turns to regard Christine
and the empty bottle clutched in her hand. His voice
is distant and she gets the vague impression that a
door is closing.

“No amount of alcohol would be enough for what I’d
tell you.”

His head turns back again, his gaze returning to the
threads of the blanket, which he begins to pull apart.
With only the tips of his fingers free to move, it’s
a slow go, but Jack seems determined to unravel them.

“So, how exactly does a secretary find herself
suddenly Awakened? Something you worked at or was it
an accident?”

Christine recognises the change of subject and this
bothers her some. She understands that the picture
Jack could show her of his slavery to Akril is far
from pretty and she can't help but be relieved to be
spared details, craven though that seems. She turns
her attention from his strange history to her own.

"Me? Accident - if anything ever really is. I'm
beginning to wonder," she replies. She slips one hand
into her jacket pocket and draws out a smooth black
object, a finger of obsidian. In the muted lamplight,
it seems to glistens with a red sheen as it rests on
Christine's pale palm. 

"This seems to have been the trigger." Christine
hesitates, trying to organize her thoughts. "I think I
always had the potential and maybe I would have
Awakened anyway if I hadn't . . . Well, look. I don't
know how much you know about all this kinda thing? I'm
still feeling my way so you'll have to excuse me if it
sounds stupid. But, someone I went to for help told me
some stuff. He said that because I became a vampire's
minion - a ghoul, using vampire blood to . . . " She
grimaces slightly, " . . . well, whatever. But that
got in the way. When I found this, by chance or Fate
or whatever, it made my body reject all the vitae in
my blood and I  . . . Awoke. That was a couple of days
ago. Been trying to work out what the hell's going on
ever since." 

Christine lays the shard of dark volcanic glass
carefully on the pale woven blanket, a little distance
from Jack's restless hands and turns it over with her
fingertips so that Jack can see it's jagged edge, the
place where it sheered away from its original whole.
"See that? Apparently, it was once part of a statue.
Aztec or something like that. Some ancient snake
involved with blood sacrifice and stuff. Y'know, bad
mojo. Even this little piece got treated like toxic
waste by the guys who told me about it."

Christine props her head on one hand, elbow on Jack's
cover, her gaze resting absently on the fragment of
the Obsidian Canes that seems to have claimed her as
its own.
  

TBC

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