A Whateley Academy Tale
Jade 6-i – Dreams and Awakening
By Babs Yerunkle
53: Black Magic
Jade was stuffed. Thuban had ordered enough food to feed
Billie. She may have gotten her roommate’s perfect figure, but fortunately she
hadn’t also acquired Billie’s substantial appetite.
“More cashew chicken?” Thuban asked, lazily. He had
reserved a private room, and after the door had slid shut, he’d allowed his
human guise to lapse.
“Couldn’t eat another bite,” Jade admitted. “You really
don’t like holding your human shape, do you?”
Thuban shrugged. “It’s not really uncomfortable, but I
don’t enjoy it.”
“Maybe it’s time to head back to our own kind,” Jade mused.
“When did I start thinking like that? Us and them?”
“I’ve seen it happening in Faction Three,” Thuban noted. “I
believe it comes from two simple things – a group that accepts you, and a
second group that doesn’t. It wasn’t such an issue before the Faction Three
meetings began. Hawthorne has always had their own identity, but Twain and
Whitman have been mixtures of normal-appearing students and the Faction Three
crowd. But with my creation of F3, we’ve all been brought into a large group
that accepts all of us. At least, I think they’re starting to believe that F3
will accept them. The next step is proving that F3 can actually help
them.”
Jade nodded, agreeably. They’d been over this ground
several times in the dinner. “That’s part of why it hurts for me to live a
lie. I’ve tried to be Lazuli, but I’m really not her. F3 should be about
being open and honest about who we are.”
“Like you’re honest about who Jinn is?”
“That’s different. Everyone protects their powers. I mean,
there are lots of exemplars who have other powers too. Do you?”
Thuban shrugged. “Well, I have some modest talents in my
own particular brand of wizardry.” He reached a hand into his oversized sleeve
and pulled out a four foot long sword. A sword that obviously could not have
fit back into the sleeve. “You see?”
Jade clapped like a little child. “Hidden weapons! Just
like Mousse, in Ranma ½!”
“Perhaps I should start showing that after Gargoyles
finishes. A series about people who are transformed into animals, and curses
that change you into something you’re not, something you hate. Mixed in with
martial arts and constant combat. Would it be a natural for our crowd?”
“It might be more natural for the T-girls over in Poe,” Jade
speculated. “Still, it’s worth trying. You might check out Ge Ge Ge no
Kitaro, too. I’m all in favor of more animé. Hey, I’ll bet you did that
hidden weapons trick with something like the super-shrinky closet box, that the
gargoyle body fits inside. Am I right?”
Thuban’s jovial mood vanished instantly. “Have you
discussed that box with anyone?”
“No, of course not.”
Thuban relaxed again. He took a shred of beef on his
chopstick, before speaking again. “Sometimes you are too perceptive for my
comfort. Like you, I prefer to have my true abilities remain private and
concealed, to whatever extent is possible.”
“Okay, I understand. I guess this isn’t the time to ask
about where I can get a magic ‘purse of holding’ is it?”
“No, not really.” Thuban snorted. “Women are bad enough
with the junk they dump in a purse. Imagine if you had one, like that clutch
purse there, only it was really closet-sized on the inside.”
“Well,” Jade admitted, “I did kinda dream about that.
Imagine what I could carry around! Not just my gun, but a real bazooka or
something like that. Climbing gear, maybe a sword, a couple of changes of clothes…”
He snorted some more, choking for a moment on a piece of
meat before snorting again. “I can just imagine you boarding a plane. ‘Excuse
me, sir? Where can I check my bazooka?’ And then you pull it out of a clutch
purse. Poor stupid norms.”
“Eww,” she decided, “giving away my guns? Maybe my MID will
let me carry stuff like that on a plane.”
Thuban shook his head. “Afraid not. And I’m afraid that
such a purse would be pretty expensive. To make the effect permanent, I need
to embed the magic into a mithril tracery around the distorted space. It gets
very expensive, very quickly.”
“Then… Lazuli and all her gear must have cost you a small
fortune.”
Thuban nodded. “Having a gargoyle was very important to
me.”
“And I can see how much good I’m doing,” Jade admitted, “but
she just isn’t me. I want to be honest with people. I want to be the real
me.”
“You, my dear, cut an excellent figure of a woman now, but
alas you are not suitable for Faction Three. I’m afraid you’re just a bit too
normal. That would arouse both envy and resentment.”
“Yeah, but what if I came as Shroud? Her face is nothing
more than a mask. If I do away with that, she’s plenty weird.”
“You’re probably right, but I want my gargoyle, and you
can’t do both, can you?”
And that’s when Jade saw her opening. “What if I could?”
Thuban thumped a clawed hand down on the table. “Ha! I
knew it! Back when you were possessed by Tansy, your spirit was in Tansy, but
‘Jinn’ still attended classes. And when she talked to security, she said her
name as ‘Jann’, not ‘Jinn.’ I’m right, aren’t I?”
“Uh…” she quickly consulted with Jann-sensei in her head.
How much did they really trust Thuban with their secrets?
“Okay,” she finally decided. “But just like you have your
secrets…”
“Yes, I get it.”
“Yeah. I can conjure more.”
“Fascinating! How many? And how much are they like you? I
mean, really?”
She took a deep breath and swallowed a last sip of lukewarm
green tea. “Do you act different in your dorm room, in your cave, and in the
F3 meetings? Do you put on a different persona when you shift into human
form?”
“In some of those cases I have a certain role to assume.
Although it’s interesting to see that if you play the role for long enough, in
a way it becomes part of you, doesn’t it?”
“Exactly,” she concurred. “If you astrally projected –
You’ve heard the term? – If you astrally projected, and had your full memories
during the projection and even remembered it when you returned to your body,
how much is that astral spirit ‘you’?”
“It’s completely me. It’s my spirit, or soul, or whatever.
I haven’t taken the metaphysics classes yet, but I know that much.”
“Exactly,” she said again. “So how much is Jinn ‘me’?
Totally. She is me and I am her. I may act a slightly different role,
depending on my ‘costume’ if you will. But I am always me.”
“So you’re in perfect telepathic communication with
yourself? What’s the range? How do you manage to coordinate through so many
eyeballs and so many bodies?”
“No, no, no,” Jade corrected. “When I charge myself into
something, that’s a separate ‘me’. We’re completely disconnected. During the
Tansy possession, I thought one of me had died. It’s only when the charge is
dropped, or lapses, that the memories join together. And then I was
both of me, but now I’m just the single me again.”
Thuban looked puzzled. “I’m not sure if that makes sense.
That is, I understand what you just said, but the implications are very
strange.”
“Yeah, I’ve noticed.”
Jade reached into her purse and pulled out a pair of dimes
and a speaker disk. Then, reaching for the table, she charged a random
collection of junk. Immediately, a humanoid figure rose to stand on the
table. It was about a foot tall, with a rice-ball head and two dimes for eyes,
and a round dime speaker-disk for a mouth. It had chopstick arms and legs, a
green cloth napkin as a cape, and its body was composed of a collection of
chicken and broccoli.
“I’m a spirit,” the thing said. “My body is just matter
that anchors me in the world, keeping me from slipping back into the head of my
physical body. It also gives me a way to interact with the world. I can
‘hold’ and manipulate the matter of my ‘body’, but it isn’t me.”
Jade took another set of chopsticks and reached in to the
creature’s body, then pulled out a broccoli floret which she proceeded to eat.
“I can release parts of my body, or keep hold of them. ‘Course,
even if I kept hold of the broccoli, it’s not like being chewed up and
swallowed would hurt me.”
Jade swallowed, and then the two of her spoke in unison.
“But I’m still just ‘me’ in both places. We have slightly different
viewpoints, and we’re separated for the moment, but we’ll be back together
soon.”
“You see?” Jade-physical asked.
The small creature floated over the table, and bits of it
began to flow back to where the belonged. The chopsticks settled down in their
places, the food floated into its proper dish, the napkin settled in Jade’s
lap, and the coins returned to her hand.
“You see?” She said again. “Now I have both memories. You
should know that you look completely gigantic when I’m only a foot tall.”
“But…” Thuban was still trying to cope with the concept.
“You and your sister are taking different classes.”
“Yeah. I think I’m gaining experience about four times as
fast as a normal person. So I’ve been at Whateley nearly three months, but if
you figure a normal person gets sixteen real hours of experience a day, it’s
like I’ve been attending and learning here for nearly a year. Believe me, I
really need that time to even try to keep up with you exemplars and other
super-brains.”
Thuban did his front-to-back nictitating blink upon hearing
that. “How many of you can you create?”
“One’s easy. Two is hard. Three leaves my physical body
exhausted. I can read or watch TV, but I wouldn’t try fighting.” She realized
that with the numbers she’d given, Thuban would figure out the rest. “Four
knocks me out. I’ve been pushing it, so it’s been a while since I fell asleep
normally.”
“You’re a one-girl army.”
“It’s more limiting than you might think. But I started all
this to explain that Jinn is me. Lazuli the gargoyle isn’t, not really. I
want to be part of Faction Three, but I want to be a real part of it. I want
to be there honestly, as me. The things I would tell people, the advice I’d
give, they’d be better if I could be honest. I could form real relationships
with those people that could still be there in class, or on campus.”
Thuban raised his hands. “Fine, fine! You can come as
Shroud. Don’t wear a normal face. But I’d better see a gargoyle there, too!”
More quietly, he added, “It’s just a dream of mine. I saw that show before I
ever began to change. There were times when … it helped. If there were real,
live gargoyles I’d do anything to have them join. Barring that, I want
Lazuli. Understand?”
Jade understood very well. She just hoped that Thuban would
still understand, if things went badly with Tool, because she was determined to
help the girl if she could.
*****
On the way out of the restaurant, Jade paused to touch a
payphone. Jinn-phone waited until no one was nearby, then lifted the handset
just enough to turn the phone on and generate a dial tone. Had anyone been
watching, they would have seen buttons pushing in of their own accord, as the
number for Whateley campus was dialed.
“Welcome to Whateley!” The phone began to spew the classic
recorded intro, duplicated almost word-for-word from the academy’s
innocuous-seeming website. “Nestled in the verdant, scenic hills of New
England, Whateley Academy brings a premier education—”
“Whitman Cottage, please,” Jinn said, ignoring the recorded
message. With all the devisors on campus, a voice-activated mail system had
been a regular part of the campus since the late seventies.
“Certainly! To whom is this call directed?”
“Code name: Tool.”
“Connecting…” A moment later, she heard dialing again.
Jinn was directly vibrating the microphone in the phone
handset, and directly sensing the speaker. She hoped that no one would even
notice that the phone was in use. The handset was lifted, but it should appear
to be hung up.
“Yeah, this is Tool. Whaddya want?”
Jinn simulated her Lazuli voice. “This is Laz.”
“Have you been thinking about it? ‘Cause I’ve talked to my
source. The witch says she could do it. I mean, really do it, if we’re ready
to take the chance. She could do it as early as tonight or tomorrow night.”
“I needed to get permission from Thuban,” Jinn-Lazuli said.
It was close enough to the truth. “Yeah. I’m game. What time, and where do
we meet?”
Tool sucked in her breath. It was audible, even over the
phone. “Really? You’re sure you want to go through with this? Wow, I can’t
believe this – it’s like everything I’ve dreamed of, coming all at once. But,
are you really, really sure? You’ll be taking most of the risks.
‘Cause I’m starting to get a creepy feeling about the whole magic thing.”
“I’m pretty hard to hurt,” Jinn told her, confidently.
“If you’re sure… Wow. Well, the ritual has to be at
midnight, in a prepared magical location. Meet me at the back door to
Whitman. Uh, maybe quarter to twelve?”
“I’ll be there,” Jinn promised.
*****
Billie was still out dancing or something by the time Jade
was ready for bed. With the shades drawn and the door locked, she prepared to
take off the beautiful Chinese dress that Thuban had bought her. But then she
caught her reflection in the full-length mirror hung on the back of their door,
and she couldn’t help posing.
She’d done it! She was a girl! And admiring her own
reflection, she thought she wasn’t just a girl, she was a pretty girl.
The cheongsam definitely emphasized the length of her legs. She moved one leg
forward, so hose-covered length of her leg was displayed through the slit that
ran up to almost her hip. And the way the dress clung tightly to her midriff
emphasized both the width of her hips and the swell of her chest, while the
high collar drew the eyes up to her face and eyes.
Those were her weakest points, really. She wished her eyes
were more special. Maybe she’d get Nikki to help her get better with makeup.
If she didn’t have the natural equipment, perhaps she could use enhancements to
make her eyes seem more interesting. After all, women had been doing
that for thousands of years.
The thought sent a shiver of glee through her. Women.
Women just like her.
She carefully unbuttoned the dress and slipped out of it,
before folding it up. And stepping out of the pantyhose, she was pleased to
see that they hadn’t ripped or torn. Ayla had said to keep them, so she could
wash them and get another use out of them. She quickly shimmied into her
oversized Hello Kitty nightshirt. Glancing back into the mirror, she gleefully
examined her curves once again.
Without a bra or anything on you could easily see her
nipples. She’d heard that boys (and Poe girls) liked that. She just didn’t
think she wanted to expose herself that much. She ran a hand down her side,
reveling in the way her hand dipped and swerved as it passed over her curves.
She really liked her butt. Both the wide hips and the shape of her behind.
Simply walking was so much different now. She felt like a model walking the
runway, everywhere she went.
Impishly, she faced the mirror head-on, then gradually
lifted the hem of her shirt. While it had more or less reached her knees
before, now it barely preserved her modesty. Now, clutching the nightshirt at
her belly, she pulled it up every so slightly while watching her reflection.
Without a mirror, just looking down at her own nude body,
she couldn’t really see anything beside the dark wisps of pubic hair that were
beginning to show. After being a boy, it was so strange to have the private
bits suddenly missing from sight. But a girl was just arranged so much better,
with her delicates hidden away below. Jade looked into the mirror, studying
closely as she edged the shirt up. There were the top of her thighs, there was
that interesting gap between her thighs. In her stupid boy-body, the thighs
had pressed against each other all the way up. But now that she was proper,
her legs didn’t quite touch as she got to the top. And then, with another inch
exposed, her most private area began to show. The first hints of curly dark
hair in front, the swell of fleshy lips to each side, and that mysterious cleft
down the center. A cleft with the a fringe, the merest hint, of darker secret
flesh peeking through those lips.
Would Thuban like to see me like this? she wondered.
Would he want to have sex with me? She wasn’t sure how she felt about
that idea. Well, she knew how she felt right now – no way! She’d barely even
touched herself there. Letting a boy touch her there, letting him stick his
penis into her – that idea was still kind of creepy. Of course, she’d let Rip
see her. She and Rip had practically given each other shows.
Holding her gathered shirt in her left hand, her right
reached down tentatively to touch the very top of her slit. It was so
different! A boy’s parts were right there, you just grabbed them. But her
slit was much farther down. And to feel the full extent of her new parts,
she’d have to squat and flex her legs open, reaching down to grope herself.
Perhaps later she’d engage in more vulgar explorations of her new body, but for
now it was a wonderment to feel the smooth contours of her underside,
unencumbered by a boy’s protrusions and dangling bits. Everything about her
body felt so right and so perfect now.
It was quite literally her dream come true.
Her hand continued its happy glide across her skin – the
trim inward curve of her waist, the hard bones of her ribcage. She slipped the
nightshirt off to examine her breasts.
It wasn’t proper to say such things, but she absolutely
loved having breasts. Somehow, they made her feel feminine and confident and
beautiful and shy and proud, all at the same time. She liked the weight of
them, and the way they shifted or bounced when she walked or ran. She liked
binding herself up tight in a bra, or just letting herself hang free, like
now. It seemed to her that a lot of people talked about nipples. But nipples
were almost too sensitive to touch. That was one of the best reasons to use a
bra – so that her nipples didn’t get all scratched up by rubbing against the
inside of a blouse. At least, it felt like they were getting all scratched up.
Keeping her hands away from the too-sensitive nipples, instead
she felt the flesh of her breasts, feeling their weight, squeezing herself
gently, stroking the sides and undersides of her breasts, stroking that curious
little gap that was her cleavage.
She’d secretly listened to a lot of bathroom talk. From what
she’d overheard, she was convinced that breasts were the main argument in favor
of being a lesbian. Guys were always groping and grabbing and squeezing.
They’d pinch a nipple or even bite! (Some of them.) But another girl would
know how to use gentle strokes and the deliciously subtle sensations of breath,
or stroking fingertips, or perhaps something like a feather.
Thinking these thoughts while gently stroking the skin of
her own breasts, she was surprised to see her nipples swell and harden until they
were almost painfully tight.
How about that? I didn’t even touch them, and they’re
still too sensitive!
She slid the nightshirt back on, acutely aware of how the
soft cotton scratched past her swollen nipples on the way down.
She couldn’t believe how lucky and happy she was.
*****
The arrangements with Tool were no big deal. Jade herself
would be asleep at midnight, but her other selves were almost always up and
about at that time. She considered precautions, then considered them again.
She really did want to help Tool out. Besides, if Tool could take over the
gargoyle duties, so much the better. But there was no sense taking chances
with Thuban’s box. So she used three charges, getting ready for the mystic
ceremony.
The first, “Lazuli” would actually be an old cloak from
costuming. Jade had used her pestle and powdered some blue chalk and mixed it
until she had the right consistency and color. With a body of opaque black
coal dust and a skin of blue chalk over that, she made a decent duplicate of
Lazuli. It was a matter of thought to form the body, but once she’d shifted to
take Lazuli’s shape, she was pleased to note that moving her wings and tail was
almost second nature. Her practice had paid off.
Her second spirit-self charged the actual puppet-suit. As
Lazuli for real, she stripped off her clothes and stood naked beside
chalk-powder-Lazuli. Jade-physical came over and supervised, until she had the
material patterns for golden veins and white eyes, white teeth and gold claws,
everything looking nearly perfect. Then chalk-Lazuli put on the clothes,
making a very good likeness for the puppet-suit-gargoyle.
Suit-Lazuli grabbed a white sheet and wound it around
herself as a simple toga.
Finally, she cast Jamie the SpySpeck. This time, Jamie was
cast into more than a speck. Jamie held the invisible closet-box, and a pair
of shot-filled gloves inside. Jamie would hide invisibly near-by and observe.
If chalk-Lazuli wasn’t working, or somehow wasn’t good enough for the spell,
then suit-Lazuli would appear, and Jamie would still keep watching. If there
was a fight, an extra pair of hands might be useful. And if she needed to pick
something up to stuff away in the box, she had hands for that, too.
Operating at night was no problem. Her spirits didn’t see
by light, so the only way she could tell whether it was day or night was by
looking at a clock.
If all went well, she would sacrifice a “body” made of chalk
dust and coal powder, and gain another gargoyle. With two of them, Lazuli could
ease off the meetings and give Shroud and Tool the opportunity to move in and
make a position for themselves.
Or, so her theory went.
*****
Chalk-Lazuli slipped out of her dorm windows long after
everyone had fallen asleep. Billie had long since gotten used to her comings
and goings. She slipped down the hall to the sunroom, and cracked open a
window. Then, in classic gargoyle fashion, she used her claws against the
rough exterior of the building to claw her way up the outside wall to the roof of
Poe Cottage. Acting quickly before security or the house mother could arrive,
she launched herself off into the air, snapping her wings wide to catch the
breeze. Flapping only occasionally, she glided off, on her way to Whitman.
She couldn’t fly directly, that would take her across the center of campus.
Security would definitely spot her. As it was, security might spot her anyway,
but perhaps between speed and avoidance, she might get to the back door of
Whitman before they caught up with her.
Of course, she wasn’t really gliding. She was moving and
flying through brute telekinetic force. But an interesting thing had happened
over the months she’d been using her spirit-bodies and animating various
figures. Somehow, her brain had made connections, adjustments, or something.
It was different when she was in “object mode”, where she individually
controlled each item. But in “girl mode” or “body mode” or whatever she wanted
to call it, the feelings and sensations continued to grow more natural and real.
Oh, she’d never mistake her animated TK body for a real one. The lack of pain,
pleasure, heat, or cold, the different sensations in her “skin”, the difference
in her sight, all these made the distinction quite apparent. But each of her
“bodies” was coming to feel and move more like the illusion it appeared to be.
Right now, she felt like a flying gargoyle, and the subtle push and flow
of air along her “skin” felt like real currents of air. Her tail, wings, arms,
and legs moved as if they actually had mass and inertia, despite being an empty
film of chalk. The illusion was cruelly shattered under some circumstances.
When she tried to punch, she struck with all the force of a relentless,
insistent film of chalk. On the other hand, that sometimes worked to her
advantage. As Shroud, with her metallic arms, she felt like a normal
girl, moving and punching with all the effort and mass of a normal arm. In
that case, the arms were actually heavier and harder than normal arms, and her
strikes did correspondingly more damage.
There were many things about her powers that she still
didn’t understand. For now, she resolved to enjoy what she could, and accept
what came. Her life was good, and she wanted to spread the good cheer wherever
she could.
With that cue, she saw Whitman cottage ahead of her, with
the unmistakably shifting form of Tool waiting, one hand holding the back door
open.
Flaring her wings wide, chalk-Lazuli pulled back in a stall,
then dropped lightly to the ground next to Tool.
The girl seemed to have no trouble seeing in the darkness –
perhaps because of her oversized eyeballs. Fortunately, she didn’t seem to
spot the invisible cigarette box hovering twenty feet up and back. The box was
plain to Lazuli’s vision, but she knew that it was invisible to most human
sight.
“You still want to do this?” Tool asked. “I mean, I’m
starting to get a bad feeling about this whole thing.”
“You changed your mind?”
“Well, no, not that,” Tool admitted. “I mean, I dreamed
about being a gargoyle long before I ever became a mutant. Maybe you don’t
know what it’s like to have that sort of impossible dream. So, yeah, I still
want it. But…”
“Yes?”
“Well, I asked around a bit more on the reputation of this
witch. Hekate’s got a pretty nasty rep, and I’m starting to have second
thoughts.”
“Hekate?”
“You know her?”
“Not really,” Lazuli-Jinn admitted. “But I know of
her. She’s one of the top Alphas, and that’s not exactly a great
recommendation.”
“Ha! I knew it! You are a student here!”
“Uh…” Jinn couldn’t think of a good answer to that. “I
might not be. Maybe I just hang around campus. And hear things.”
“Right. Of course. Come on, we need to get downstairs.”
Tool seemed to flow through the door. Jinn as a gargoyle,
furled her wings like a cloak over her shoulders. She held the door open long
enough to allow the invisible box to slip through, then strode after Tool.
As they headed down the stairs, Jinn tried to remember what
she knew of Hekate. She recalled that the girl had been extremely upset with
Tansy, and more than a little vindictive. She’d used some sort of mind blast,
and something that might have been minor telekinesis. And Tansy had gotten a
dossier on Hekate from Nex, back when the wannabe-ninja could still do his
invisibility trick. What had that said? Hekate was supposed to be level three
in several different areas – exemplar, psi, and wizard. There’d been rumors
that she was a warper, but nothing solid. And her magical abilities, her
wizard skills, were supposed to be mostly jinxes and hexes. Did the girl have
capabilities that Nex hadn’t managed to pick up? There was a rumor that she’d
done something to the girl who was now known as “Succubus.” One rumor said
that she’d taken an attractive exemplar girl and spell-cursed her to turn into
becoming a demon.
Jinn reached forward for Tool’s shoulder. “Look, I don’t
trust Hekate at all. Maybe I’m starting to have second thoughts about this,
too. But… I do want to help you. I feel like I raised your hopes, and I don’t
want to back out on that. The same thing has happened too many times to me.
Is this really what you want? To permanently become a monster? To look like
this?” She held out her blue, clawed hand.
Tool stared at her, and the glow of utter longing was clear
in her face. “Since I first saw the TV show, it’s all I ever wanted,” she
said, honestly. “A monster? Perhaps. But a monster made to look beautiful.
You have no idea how sexy you are, or how erotic your every moment is, do you?
That’s what I want to be! I want to move with that raw animal power. I want
people to stare at me, in a good way.”
Jinn tried one last time. “I won’t renege on what I
offered, but do you really want Hekate to be in control of you? If she’s
casting the spell…”
“I’ve done some research of my own,” Tool replied. “Not
just because of this past day, I’ve been thinking about this for a long
time. I may not have the talent, but I’ve been taking magic classes for a year
and a half with only one goal in mind. I’ve prepared incantations of my own. If
you know anything about magic, you’ll know that the will and drive and
intentions of the target can also guide a spell. When the magic is forming,
you can often bend it, deflect it, particularly if you aren’t trying to simply oppose
it, but you’re trying to alter it just the tiniest amount. There are so many
factors – training, skill, willpower, magical power. But it’s a bit like
hypnosis. You know, the part about hypnosis not being able to overcome a
firmly opposed will. It’s not exactly the same, but…”
She took a deep breath, trying to calm herself. “I had
expert help drawing up my own spell words, to help focus my intentions. I’m
almost ashamed to admit it, but I’ve been obsessing about gargoyles like Demona
and Goliath for so long, for so many years, that everything about them is fixed
in my mind –voices, movements, appearance, everything. That’s what I want.
I’m willing to pay almost any price to get that, do you understand? You want a
slave for life? Is that what you want?”
Jinn shook her head. Did she sound like that to other
people? “Okay, okay, I’m convinced. And no, I’m not interested in the
slave-for-life business. If you can become your true self and be happy, then
I’ll be satisfied. No. You want a price? How’s this – help the kids in
Faction Three, and help Thuban. That’s my price. And I’m trusting that you
won’t be the villain that Demona turned into. From what I heard, this spell is
supposed to give you a body that’s a duplicate of mine, not Demona’s.”
“Yeah… we’ll see. If my plan works, there will be no
concern at all about my turning into a ‘villain like Demona.’”
“So what are you offering Hekate?”
Tool looked away, burning with sudden shame. “Three
favors. Any time, anything at all, anything less than maiming or murder. No
questions, no refusal.”
“That’s uncomfortably close to a blank check.”
“If I could only make you understand…”
Jinn waved her off. “I understand better than you’d think.
That’s why I’m helping you, despite my better judgment. Unless – maybe
Thuban’s BIT-slicer?”
Tool peered at her suspiciously. “You know about that?
Anyway, it didn’t work for me. Lasted all of ten seconds, until I needed a
pair of pliers to unstrap myself.”
“Maybe another mage could do it better, with less risk.”
She wondered about both Sara and Nikki.
“I don’t understand why you’d do this willingly,” Tool said,
“but I doubt if any other mage would go along with it.”
Because, Jinn thought, I’m perfectly willing to
abandon this body of chalk and coal, particularly if it gives you my shape in
the process. And I don’t have a real body of my own to lose. But aloud,
she said, “Then… I guess we go ahead with this.”
Tool lead them down a dark hallway. One of the farthest
rooms was padlocked shut, but Tool put a hand to the padlock. A moment later,
it was open.
They moved inside, closing the door behind them. Hekate and
two other girls were already there, concealed beneath hooded cloaks. To Jinn’s
eyes, the girls literally glowed against a black-and-white background. Hekate
slowed with the laser-red color of true magic. It was strongest around her
hands and eyes, but a softer glow surrounded her body.
“How’d you get here?” Tool demanded.
Hekate gave an indulgent chuckle as she waved a hand at a
brazier, which burst into flames. “I wouldn’t be much of a wizard if I
couldn’t even sneak into a cellar, would I?”
Jinn took stock of the room they were in. It was square,
without any windows. A large circle was carved into the bare concrete floor.
Three smaller circles touched the periphery of the large one. Braziers were
set in all four corners of the claustrophobic room, and the air above them had
the shimmer that indicated to her that they were lit, giving off heat and light
for those that could perceive it. A few pieces of folding furniture were
stacked against the near wall.
Hekate peered at Jinn suspiciously. “You, I’ve never seen
before. Who are you? Do you understand what you’ve volunteered for?”
Jinn moved to stand beside Tool. “I understand that I am
giving up this body, so that Tool can become locked in this shape. Who I am
doesn’t matter.”
“Hmm. Shifter? TK shell? Ectoplasmic shell? Or maybe an
alternate form manifestor? I’m guessing that you’re hoping to ‘donate’ this shape,
while keeping your normal shape, right?”
Jinn shrugged. “Perhaps.”
One of the companions tossed a hood back, revealing a short
girl that Jinn had never met. “I have to warn you – I’m not able to read any
omens around this working. It might go well, it might go poorly, but I can’t
tell.”
Jinn glanced at Tool, who was practically glowing with
eagerness.
“I’m already committed,” Jinn said.
“Okay then,” Hekate ordered, “places, everyone. Step one –
dump the clothes.”
With that, Hekate removed her cloak and draped it over a
folding chair. She stepped out of a pair of sandals. Now she was nude.
Hekate’s two companions did likewise, with the omen girl taking a small
bracelet and placing it down carefully. Jinn caught a single glimmer of red from
the bracelet, but then it looked normal again. Hekate reached into a small
wicker basket at her feet, and withdrew two white candles, while the girls set
up the folding table in the center of the inscribed circle.
“It’s called ‘skyclad’,” Hekate explained. “It’s best for
workings done under an open sky, but it will help even in this enclosed cellar.
Jinn and Tool were disrobing. Tool was evidently very
emotionally involved, because each time she glanced at Jinn, her breasts
swelled slightly, matching Jinn’s more ample bust. As Tool turned around, Jinn
notices that small wings and a thick tail would begin to form on the
uncontrollable shifter, before melting away again.
Hekate stepped inside the circle, then motioned for Jinn to
enter. “Hold these candles. Later I will tell you to hand them, one by one,
to the shifter girl, so pay attention. Now, I think it will work best if you
lie down on your back, on top of this table.” She gave a wicked smile. “I
hope it isn’t too uncomfortable!”
Not saying a word, Jinn lay on her back on the table,
spreading her wings wide.
“Now, Tool, you lie on top of her, face down, like you were
making love.”
Tool looked up in surprise.
“Oh come on! She’s giving you her body! It doesn’t get
more intimate than that, does it?”
The other girl took her position awkwardly, holding herself
up as if she was doing a pushup. The problem was where their breasts came
together.
“It’s okay,” Jinn said. “Let yourself on down. And you
might scoot down a bit, too.”
Now the problem was their legs. Would Tool take the
outside, the inside, or straddle half-and-half?
“I didn’t mean – I don’t want you to think I—” Tool was
utterly tongue-tied by the situation.
“Do I look turned on?” Jinn shot back. Though in truth, it
would have been much more interesting if she’d been wearing a body that could
feel things.
Once they were settled in, Jinn pulled in her wings and
wrapped them around the other girl, helping to hold them both in place on top
of the table.
“Thanks,” Tool whispered back. “Boy, you sure don’t put
out much body heat, do you?”
“Spread your legs more, both of you,” Hekate ordered. “Now,
Gargoyle, hold your arms out to the sides. Straight out!” The witch placed a
candle in each of her outstretched hands. “Hold on to those until I tell you
to hand them to Tool.”
“What do we do?” Tool asked awkwardly, from her position
atop Jinn.
“Nothing, just accept it.” Hekate looked to her two
assistants. “Ready?”
The girls nodded, one after the other.
“Then let’s begin!”
Hekate returned to her own circle, then flung her arms out,
and the braziers flared with distortion ripples of increased heat. Hekate
began to chant in Latin, then an assistant would take up the chant, while
Hekate moved onto a new line. By the time the third assistant came in, Jinn
realized, It’s like a round, in music!
At the same time, contrary to instructions, Tool was doing
something. She was chanting her own rhyme:
“A woven spell to fix the form
Divergent wild from mankind’s norm
By night I’m stone and wing and claw
And with the sun’s rise magic’s law
Transforms to flesh and human guise
Both young and strong to cause a rise
In any mate was ever born
And locked thus be till Gabriel’s horn!”
A flicker of laser-red over the tip of the candle in her right
hand, and Jinn suddenly saw the heat distortions that indicated the candle had
been lit. A moment later, the candle in her left hand had also come alive.
She noticed that the three chanting girls each stood in their own circles, the
smaller ones that touched the periphery of the large magic circle.
Now the red light began to spark and glow around each of the
three witches, spilling out like luminescent red fog to coat the floor. The crimson
fog followed along the inscribed depressions, becoming lines of glowing red
alien script. Still the chanting continued.
Now red fog began to well up near the side of the table.
Tracings sparkled through the fog, forming an ever-more-intricate pattern. A
moment later, a creature hovered there, composed of pure magic. It wasn’t a
humanoid creature. The closest she could come to describing it was that it was
a trident, balanced on its handle and standing points-upward. The pointed head
was the central tine, and the two upraised arms formed the other two tines. It
reminded her somewhat of an eel, but it had no smooth surface or skin.
Instead, it was just a tangle of magical thread, twisted and knotted into this
grotesque form. As the chanting continued, the thing began to absorb red fog
like a child sucking up cotton candy. It quickly thickened to the point of
appearing to be a demonic and hateful-looking viper with smooth red skin.
Looking hungrily over the two girls lying face to face on the table, it
launched itself up in the air and came down like a pitchfork on Tool’s back.
The immaterial being pierced through the shapeshifter and continued on through
Jinn’s telekinetic body.
It felt like a bowling ball had been shoved into her gut,
then a similar-sized piece was ripped away. The demon shot up and down through
them like a sewing needle, going first down, then back up. On the down stroke,
Jinn saw Tool’s face erupt in pain. Then she felt something shoved into her
body. On the upstroke, it was the reverse – some part of her was ripped away,
sent upward into Tool.
“Transfer the right candle, NOW!”
She soon realized what was happening. Her stomach was
ripped away from her, replaced by Tool’s stomach. Or perhaps, it was the pattern
of their respective stomachs. With each piercing, she felt a piece of her body
torn from her, to be replaced by the corresponding piece from Tool’s body. For
the first time, she actually believed herself a shapeshifter. Her mind was
forced to realize, to envision, to create her gargoyle body in its full
intricacy, and for sharp, pain-edged moments she knew. This was
how lungs must change to support the greater demands of the body, this
was how the skin altered to stone-like strength. The insights were useless to
her – she had neither a body nor a cellular structure to manipulate, only
lifeless specs of dust. But as each insight came, it was as quickly ripped
away from her mind, never to reappear. It wasn’t a rape, but it was closer
than she ever wanted to come. Before her mind’s eye, her intangible gargoyle’s
body was rendered real. For the first time on the planet, this creature born
of imagination was rendered into flesh, bone, and sinew, and then her
brilliance and design was stolen not even a moment later. Stolen in such a way
that she knew that she would never get it back. In some manner, the magic
stole the very concepts from her soul. She might make new creations, but this
creation, her first true realization, would be forever denied to her.
Sheets and lines of magical force began to spark between
their bodies. Laser-red energy arced between them – at eyes, lips, nipples and
navel. A thick red tracery flashed between their open loins like some hideous
insemination.
Above her, she watched as Tool writhed and changed. The
girl was in agony, but she never ceased her personal chant, “…with the sun’s
rise magic’s law, Transforms to flesh and human guise…” The girl was one
moment an over endowed woman with a shaggy mane of hair, then in the next
moment her face and body warped, growing fangs, talons, and tail, then she
twisted back again as the cycle continued. The pain and transformation reached
a crescendo, with both Jinn and Tool screaming. Jinn saw a multitude of people
in the being above her. First was the male gargoyle Goliath, then what he
might look like in human form, followed by what she might look like in human
form, and finally, the red-haired blue skin form of—
“Demona,” Jinn whispered, in between agonies.
Tool looked up at that very moment. “Demona?” And as she
said it, the form solidified upon her.
“Transfer the left candle, NOW!”
With the last of her strength, Jinn handed this across to
Tool’s grasping talon. With it, she felt the final portions transfer between
then, the final patterns changing place. Tool’s forms had been reduced to only
two, a red-haired human, and a crimson-maned gargoyle. The arcs of red energy
snapped between them like red-hot bars of force, linking every single joint to
its opposite member in the other. With an agonizing tear, the wings were
ripped from Jinn’s back, to erupt and unfurl from Tool’s back. She felt the
deepest parts of her body ripped loose, the way you’d gut a turkey, only to be
stuffed back a moment later with new material that was unrecognized and
unwanted. Her entire vision was swamped with red and she screamed in agony.
54: Disaster strikes
Whateley Academy, Poe Cottage, November 25, Saturday morning, 12:07 AM
It was just past midnight in Poe when Billie was jolted
awake by her roommate’s scream. She didn’t sit bolt upright in bed – she rose
straight up three feet in the air, hands clawing for energy to launch against
her foes.
Jade still slept. In the center of the room, Shroud floated
cross-legged in mid-air, holding a book. “You felt that?”
“What’s going on?” Billie demanded. “Why isn’t anyone else
coming? They’re usually here in a second when Jade screams. For that matter,
why is she still asleep?”
“She can’t wake,” Shroud explained. “Not while all four of
us are out. She doesn’t have enough energy to wake. As for the scream – it
wasn’t out loud.”
Billie scowled. “Why aren’t you doing something? Wait, you
weren’t expecting this, were you?”
“I wasn’t sure…” Shroud began. “But I promised to keep it
secret.”
“Tell me!” Billie demanded. “All of it!”
And Shroud began to tell all of her secrets.
*****
They both collapsed, utterly exhausted.
Jinn didn’t know how she could be exhausted. She had
no lungs, blood, or muscle. Moving things never took “effort”, nor did the
work tire her. But at the moment, she was exhausted. The two of them fell off
the table.
Instinctively, she stretched herself wide, spreading the
impact over a wider area. Her human form splashed against the ground, then
reformed almost as quickly.
On the other side of the table, a naked gargoyle female shakily
rose to her feet. It wasn’t the body of Lazuli, it was Demona from the
cartoon. An extremely female Demona with the exaggerated proportions of a
cartoon character. To Jinn she looked more than a little overblown, but she
thought males would appreciate the effect. The gargoyle was staring at her
hands, then groping for her wings and tail, suddenly frantic to see every part
of her body.
But the red trident wasn’t done. The transformation
complete, it launched itself at and into Jinn’s chest. It passed through her
skin, twining around her heart. For a moment, the carbon dust of her body was
formed into the outline and structure of a fully realized human body, outlining
organs, blood vessels, nerves, muscles, and bone. The glowing trident began to
unravel, spreading like a woven cage around her immaterial heart. And then,
with a familiar spike of agony, that matter was ripped free of her control.
The heart was possessed by the magical thing, the creature.
It’s a class two entity! Jinn realized. It’s
alive!
Alive, and apparently it wanted her. It was eating her! As
the coal-black shape of a human heart vanished from her control, she saw it
slump into useless dust that began sifting down through her body to fall to the
ground.
She hadn’t had formal magical training, but she’d had acute
cause to research items related to spirits and avatars. She knew what was
going on here.
It’s not just a knot of magical energy, it’s a class two
spirit, non-corporeal. But aren’t those usually responsible for possessions?
In addition to the red glow of pure magic, she saw
rudimentary emotions coming from the thing. They were far fainter than an
animal would produce, but now that she knew what to look for, she could see its
emotions. It had moved from greed to frustration, and was now edging into
anger. From the heart, the untangling thread of it snapped out to engulf the
coal-black shape of her lungs. Again there was the agonizing rip of a part of
her being pulled away, but this time she fought back. With a skill that
surpassed any she’d had before, her form fluidly shifted. It hadn’t required
shifting to “object mode”. Instead, her body flowed like water, melting away
from the tangle of magic that still surrounded the disintegrating lungs. Like
a curl of smoke, she speared out to escape the circle, and the room. But as
she reached the edge of the circle of magic, it was like she’d hit an invisible
wall. Again she splashed, like water from a hose when sprayed against a brick
wall. Instantly, the red threads were upon her, wrapping around bits of her,
stealing them away. And each time a part of her dissolved into powder, it
seemed to get all the more furious. Using her new-found agility, she writhed
around it, flowing around or between the threads as they tried to wrap around
her. If they could form loops, they could slice off bits of her, but if she
flowed away first, then there was nothing to grasp.
“What’s happening to her?” the gargoyle demanded.
“I believe we’re seeing your true shifting potential
unleashed,” Hekate said, with smug satisfaction in her voice. “Magic always
comes with a cost. My spell was a summoning, calling forth an ancient and
skilled demonic entity. As I warned you, the ‘donor’ loses their body. The
price of this piece of magic is that the demon gains that body.”
The gargoyle was seriously troubled now. “But… without a
body, what happens to her?”
“Not my business,” Hekate informed them all. “She would be
a naked soul at that point. I would imagine that the demon would then …
consume her.”
“You have to stop it!”
“Why?” Hekate wondered. “Once it has finished, the demon
will owe me three favors, exactly as you do. And that’s my price.”
But Jinn was growing more agile. How much was this like
possession by an avatar? If she had something solid and material, like one of
her metal arms, could the demon reach in for her and take it from her? She
didn’t know, but that hardly mattered now. In her arrogance, she had come here
as nothing but animated powder, and her naked spirit was stretched like film
between the particles of her being. An avatar only needed to touch her once.
Avatars were sticky, they were magnetic. With a single hold, they sucked you
in. This demon, in contrast, had to engulf her, surrounding and pinching off
the pieces of her. Stories and sparring with Toni-sensei helped her now. It
was a matter of flow and intent, always staying just ahead of the enemy. This
demon might be ancient, but it was slow compared to her. And if it could hurt
her, was the reverse true?
There was no time to find out. The tangle of glowing red
magic abruptly stop, radiating rage and frustration. It reformed into its
trident shape, then launched itself straight at the gargoyle, Tool.
There was no time to think, only to react. She shot
forward, instinctively assuming a naked human form and holding her hands out in
a martial arts block. She knew that Tool had none of her defenses against this
thing. She hadn’t gone to all this trouble just to see the girl’s soul get eaten!
But the move was a lethal mistake. At the last second, the
trident unraveled into a net of magical lines that engulfed her completely. It
instantly tightened, capturing both her dusty body and the soul that controlled
it.
*****
The unconscious body of Jade arched in silent agony on her
bed.
“Does she have to scream like that?” Billie shouted
frantically. “What do I do?”
“I don’t know! Give her energy or something? How should I
know?”
Billie grabbed Jade to shake her awake, and felt it.
It was like a tunnel, leading from Jade … out there somewhere. And at the far
end was a malevolent red net, sucking away at her soul, hungering for her dark
essence. Squeezing Jade hard enough to bruise, Tennyo felt the creature
squeezing in. Shroud didn’t have vision in the conventional sense, so she
never noticed when Tennyo’s eyes took on a green tinge, and the shadows began
to form around her hands.
“You want hunger? I’ll show you hunger!”
*****
Hekate watched the one-sided battle with smug amusement. Her
two assistants cowered in their protective circles. Neither of them had the
ability to sense magic like she did. She’d never bothered to share the Cantrip
of Perception. Magic was always a deeply personal thing, where objective
reality was overruled by subjective perception. The blue-black shape of the
shifter moved and flowed like animated water, as it evaded the naked muscular
form of the horned, goat-legged being. She knew what was coming. The gigantic
demon would put her on like a suit, slipping in through the orifices of her
body until the coal-red evil glow of it was could only be seen through mouth,
nose, and eyes. And even then, only to those with the Cantrip of Perception.
But the bare-chested half-man form grew too frustrated fighting the evasive
fluid form and turned toward the newly-minted gargoyle. Hekate debated trying
to stop it. If she lost the gargoyle, she lost half her payment. But demons
were always tricky, and her interventions might not work. Caution was best –
she’d stay safe and uninvolved.
The demon flung its clawed hand to pierce the newly-made gargoyle
through the chest. The stupid girl only stood there, she couldn’t even see
it. Suddenly, the water shape of the shifter – who obviously could see it –
was there in the way. In an eye blink, she took the form of a naked girl,
flinging her arms up in a block. But it did no good. The clawed hand pierced
her through the heart, and the demon roared in triumph, and then in terror.
Even the gargoyle, even her stupid assistants looked up at
the sound. They could all hear it, as the demon screamed in absolute terror.
The fluid shifter girl vanished, as if sucked through a drain. Where she had
stood, a fine powder rained down. And the demon – it held something it couldn’t
let go of. Screaming again, it was sucked into the mystic pinhole that had
swallowed the shifter. The demon frantically clawed and bit at its own arm,
trying to cut the appendage free, but the suction increased and it was abruptly
gone, with a scream that began in the bass range, and spiked octaves upward
through soprano before being abruptly snipped off.
The backlash left them all trembling in fear, and Hekate
suddenly noticed that the circle of protection was down. Something had
destroyed it, shattered it so suddenly that she’d never noticed.
“Wh-what happened?” the idiotic gargoyle girl asked.
Hekate gathered herself. One of her prime principles was
never to be caught at a loss. “What do you think?” she asked, contemptuously.
“I warned you that she’d lose her body. And so she has.” She decided to top
that with a bluff. “And unless you want the same fate for breaking your
contract, you will deliver your three promises to me. Wait for my call,
because I promise to collect.”
The threat worked perfectly – the shifter who had
deliberately made herself into a monster was visibly cowed.
*****
To say that Tennyo was enraged would be overstating the
case. She’d barely had enough time to work up a mild anger, but all of that
feeling had been focused on the red thing at the end of the tunnel. Now that
she’d pulled it through and into her clawed hand, it didn’t seem like such a
big deal. She felt Jinn come through, too, like a rabbit rushing for its
hole. There was a feeling that spun around and around in her chest, like a pet
racing around in happy reunion.
Billie realized that she was clutching her roommate hard
enough to draw blood. She released the unconscious girl, watching her cuts and
bruises heal, even as she fell back to the bed. She still held one hand
clutched, as if holding an invisible ball. A tangle of – something – stormed
and raged inside an invisible sphere.
“What the heck is that?” Shroud asked in wonder, apparently
staring at Billie’s clutching hand.
“What does it look like?” Billie wasn’t sure herself.
“Like – like a ball of yarn, only made out of red laser
light. And it’s all spinning and twisting. Isn’t that what you see?”
“Not exactly.” Billie saw sparks and patterns, tracings and
designs. If she looked closely, there were more than three dimensions to it,
vastly more, and the sight of it hurt her head. For a moment, she thought she
saw a way to reach down those dimensions to where it really lay. Instead, she
decided to squeeze away the part that were close to her. There was a way to do
it – her hand crushed closed, and it was gone. The residue wasn’t physical, or
even more than partially visible, but as she absently licked her fingers off,
she felt as filled as she’d been after Thanksgiving dinner.
“I think it’s time we had a little talk.”
She didn’t have the slightest idea what she was doing, but
she knew instinctively that it was right. Putting a hand on the comatose
Jade’s shoulder, she took the happy silver spark of energy that had curled up
inside her, and pushed it out, back down her arm. The spark was reluctant, but
she pushed it back into the unconscious girl. A moment later, Jade blinked,
and looked into her roommate’s face. “Uh oh.”
“We are going to talk,” Billie said seriously. “About
Faction Three, and Thuban, and gargoyles, and invisible boxes.”
As Shroud’s body collapsed onto the bed, the memories
suddenly flowed into Jade’s head. “Oh, shit.”
*****
Saturday breakfast was subdued. Toni looked tired, but
satisfied. “Man, I am getting some