Yarva Demonicus Etrigan (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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taxonomites2013-02-26 10:54 am
personaldemon) wrote in taxonomites2013-02-26 10:54 am
Entry tags:
[Location: Adventure Zone] [open to any] / [text - locked - Selina and Horst ]
[Locked to Selina/Horst] (two different texts, but identical wording in both save for the name)
Miss Kyle, (Mister Brauer,)
I apologize for my actions of the other day. I was under some duress, but this does not excuse my exorcising my difficulties upon your person.
In the future I shall be sure to leave instead.
-Jason Blood
********
He felt better.
This likely had something to do with what he'd been up to in the last several days in the pseudo-medieval landscape. He had found a sword, and an open hole in the earth in the side of a hill, with steps leading down into the dark.
Rather than being a mere pit, this had soon revealed itself as some sort of... underground complex, a lair as it were, infested with goblins, although these goblins were short, green-skinned, large-headed, and reminded him of toddlers given caffeine, as opposed to bearing much resemblance to the things he would have called 'goblins' back home.
But they had screamed, and stabbed at him with short spears and they had died, which was the relevant bit, they had died when he cut them, they had bled and they had screamed doing that too, like stuck swine, shrill manifestations of pain and blood and there were enough of them that they had begun to be one big blur and he had not had to think, he had not had to weigh consequences, all he had had to do was let the sword rise and fall, rise and fall, downward thrust, guard position, parry, downward thrust, downward thrust, and Etrigan had counted time for him, set the cadence in iambic for every sweep of the blade.
He had found humans, too-- the empty husks that populated the city itself, seeming even emptier in their roles as prisoners. Villagers, he supposed, chained here to complete the tableaux of the den of obliging, shallow monsters raiding the innocent; plowmen and milkmaids and merchants whose garments couldn't settle on what era they were supposed to be aping. Their chains had been cheap, rusted-- had been designed, clearly, for rescuing heroes to break with ease.
With Etrigan's drumming setting the count he had severed the chains, and while the first 'villager' was still in the middle of an enthusiastic Thank you, my lord, tha-- he had put the now-blunted sword into the man's gut.
Some of them had fled; he had not bothered to chase them. There had been enough left to occupy his arms and his sword.
And afterwards, Etrigan had stretched like a cat, spine arched, and settled down in the back of his skull with a purr that rumbled through his bones. Appeased, for the moment. Not satisfied. Never satisfied, no, never ever that, but he could be-- placated.
Just like old times, isn't it, dear?
When you tried less to quench my fire...
Yes, brings back the good old years--
Jerusalem, Antioch, Tyre.
He had stood in the midst of the bodies, the sword's hilt in his hand slippery with all the blood. He'd taken a breath for the first time in days that didn't feel as if his lungs were being singed in the process. Etrigan had urged his eyes down to the bodies.
"That's different," he'd said dully. "None of these people are real. None of this is."
The reality of the slaughtered dead
Has always been a subject favored
By those who would the high ground tread
And yet hold their murders savored.
'They're not REAL people!' they all cry--
Have cried in every genocide;
So pile the pointless corpses high
It's not as if anyone real has died!
That's what you're telling yourself, after all:
That better the puppeted dolls should fall
Then that you should let me free
To run rampant on the cit'zenry.
He had scowled; tossed the damaged blade against a wall in frustration and stalked for a door from the room. Like the hilt of the sword, the floor was redly slick, treacherous. "It's true. It is better. I am uninterested in your games of semantics, Etrigan."
My words, unheeded? What novelty.
You'll drown me out with blood, to shut me up!
And true; this might all illusion be...
But you've used the real thing oft enough.
And it felt real to you-- I tasted it!
Every plunge of steel through butchered foe!
Every slashed throat, and every wasting hit
Is justified, in our game of quid pro quo.
So say what words you like, to mitigate your blame--
I hope the candle's worth your own semantic game.
He had said nothing. There was nothing to say, there was never any winning of arguments with Etrigan.
He had merely looked for a stream or a fountain to wash off the blood.
And after that-- feeling, despite Etrigan's smug words, much better than he had in weeks-- he had sent the texts off to Kyle and Brauer. And now?
He pondered his person. His clothes were something of a lost cause, it had to be admitted. Some of the blood, he noticed now, too late, far too late, was his own-- nicks and cuts inflicted by the goblins, felt now that the blazing heat of Etrigan's presence had subdued again. Very well then; his first business was to see to those. Then worry about new clothes.
Miss Kyle, (Mister Brauer,)
I apologize for my actions of the other day. I was under some duress, but this does not excuse my exorcising my difficulties upon your person.
In the future I shall be sure to leave instead.
-Jason Blood
********
He felt better.
This likely had something to do with what he'd been up to in the last several days in the pseudo-medieval landscape. He had found a sword, and an open hole in the earth in the side of a hill, with steps leading down into the dark.
Rather than being a mere pit, this had soon revealed itself as some sort of... underground complex, a lair as it were, infested with goblins, although these goblins were short, green-skinned, large-headed, and reminded him of toddlers given caffeine, as opposed to bearing much resemblance to the things he would have called 'goblins' back home.
But they had screamed, and stabbed at him with short spears and they had died, which was the relevant bit, they had died when he cut them, they had bled and they had screamed doing that too, like stuck swine, shrill manifestations of pain and blood and there were enough of them that they had begun to be one big blur and he had not had to think, he had not had to weigh consequences, all he had had to do was let the sword rise and fall, rise and fall, downward thrust, guard position, parry, downward thrust, downward thrust, and Etrigan had counted time for him, set the cadence in iambic for every sweep of the blade.
He had found humans, too-- the empty husks that populated the city itself, seeming even emptier in their roles as prisoners. Villagers, he supposed, chained here to complete the tableaux of the den of obliging, shallow monsters raiding the innocent; plowmen and milkmaids and merchants whose garments couldn't settle on what era they were supposed to be aping. Their chains had been cheap, rusted-- had been designed, clearly, for rescuing heroes to break with ease.
With Etrigan's drumming setting the count he had severed the chains, and while the first 'villager' was still in the middle of an enthusiastic Thank you, my lord, tha-- he had put the now-blunted sword into the man's gut.
Some of them had fled; he had not bothered to chase them. There had been enough left to occupy his arms and his sword.
And afterwards, Etrigan had stretched like a cat, spine arched, and settled down in the back of his skull with a purr that rumbled through his bones. Appeased, for the moment. Not satisfied. Never satisfied, no, never ever that, but he could be-- placated.
Just like old times, isn't it, dear?
When you tried less to quench my fire...
Yes, brings back the good old years--
Jerusalem, Antioch, Tyre.
He had stood in the midst of the bodies, the sword's hilt in his hand slippery with all the blood. He'd taken a breath for the first time in days that didn't feel as if his lungs were being singed in the process. Etrigan had urged his eyes down to the bodies.
"That's different," he'd said dully. "None of these people are real. None of this is."
The reality of the slaughtered dead
Has always been a subject favored
By those who would the high ground tread
And yet hold their murders savored.
'They're not REAL people!' they all cry--
Have cried in every genocide;
So pile the pointless corpses high
It's not as if anyone real has died!
That's what you're telling yourself, after all:
That better the puppeted dolls should fall
Then that you should let me free
To run rampant on the cit'zenry.
He had scowled; tossed the damaged blade against a wall in frustration and stalked for a door from the room. Like the hilt of the sword, the floor was redly slick, treacherous. "It's true. It is better. I am uninterested in your games of semantics, Etrigan."
My words, unheeded? What novelty.
You'll drown me out with blood, to shut me up!
And true; this might all illusion be...
But you've used the real thing oft enough.
And it felt real to you-- I tasted it!
Every plunge of steel through butchered foe!
Every slashed throat, and every wasting hit
Is justified, in our game of quid pro quo.
So say what words you like, to mitigate your blame--
I hope the candle's worth your own semantic game.
He had said nothing. There was nothing to say, there was never any winning of arguments with Etrigan.
He had merely looked for a stream or a fountain to wash off the blood.
And after that-- feeling, despite Etrigan's smug words, much better than he had in weeks-- he had sent the texts off to Kyle and Brauer. And now?
He pondered his person. His clothes were something of a lost cause, it had to be admitted. Some of the blood, he noticed now, too late, far too late, was his own-- nicks and cuts inflicted by the goblins, felt now that the blazing heat of Etrigan's presence had subdued again. Very well then; his first business was to see to those. Then worry about new clothes.
[Location]
God's honest truth is that he's distracted--Jason just hasn't been occurring to him much at all lately. The Adventure Zone has served its purpose well with him. He spends every other day in, poking around (not necessarily for monetary gain), getting samples of kobold hair, getting himself killed intermittently. Gathering data. Exploring. Adventuring. Sometimes it's not an experiment, sometimes even he can admit to himself it's not an experiment any more; sometimes he just wants to escape, illusory as the escape may be.
But, he remembers, he's always been very susceptible to illusory escape.
Less so today: today he's looking for a Rosetta stone. Or something like it. Sherlock is engrossed checking the glyphs in his book against the glyphs on the wall mosaics (to very little avail), rucksack and first-aid kit hitched over one shoulder, when he hears the screams. He ignores them. The artificial sufferings of artificial people are no more his business than they've ever been, least of all in the Adventure Zone where they appear to be even more artificial than ever.
That doesn't stop a bit of unease from curling within him nevertheless. He listens with half an ear to the sounds of violence from a chamber a storey above him and idly ponders turning the shell-shaped switch counterclockwise slipping back the way he came, through the door in the wall, but it doesn't seem to be coming any closer. Maybe one of the virtual monsters is conducting a virtual slaughter, on-schedule, all the better to motivate the easily manipulated among them. Sherlock does not count himself among this crowd. The realism of the violence turns his stomach a little, but not enough to bait him into pointless battle: try harder, he thinks, firmly, and reminds himself that this is virtual, this is all virtual, the screams are virtual, the sobbing is virtual, and the silence, finally, that too.
It occurs to him to check his tablet map on the off chance that there might be a fellow Taxonian nearby who could help him get out, if he needs it. Respawning is a pain. It's worth a try. Sherlock folds his new spellbook shut, no closer to understanding it than he was three days ago, and glances idly at his wrist.
The name on the map takes him aback, but not nearly so much as the location.
For a moment he wonders: Etrigan? But no. Etrigan's name does turn up on the map, he and Mr Blood have that, heh, well enough established. Maybe he mistook the sounds. Maybe it wasn't a slaughter of civilians after all; maybe there's some model of goblin or orc that screams like a human woman being gutted. Maybe the pounding of running feet he heard belonged to kobolds. Maybe it's all some sort of magician's illusion.
Maybe. Sherlock tucks his book under his arm and turns the switch, and goes a-wandering.
When the wall passage opens in the subterranean cave that Jason's recently made his slaughterhouse, it discharges a blinking Sherlock Holmes, pupils dilated wide from walking in the dark. He has a book under his arm. He's obviously not armed, not in any significant capacity, and whatever he was expecting to find here--it clearly wasn't this.
He's dressed like some sort of Guide out hiking with a rucksack over his shoulder, out of place all but for the ornate leather tome his fingers are curled around. He takes in the bloody scene in a wordless moment and, for all the good it'd do him, seriously considers turning around and going back the way he came.
Instead he ventures, after a moment, "Mr Blood?"
[Location] somewhere messy.
There are better ways to heal, when magic is on the table, but for Jason at least they all require components, chalk squiggles and this root ground into a powder and this substance gathered at midnight and so forth and so forth-- none of which he has with him, because he had not really been thinking overly clearly his last day or so in the fairy-tale landscape.
Binding them will do, until he goes home, where all the herbs and such are waiting.
Holmes's voice sends a pang of mild irritation through him. That that's all it evokes causes him to let out a little sigh, a small sigh, one of relief. Mild irritation is a completely normal reaction to Sherlock Holmes. Seething fury is not.
--well. That, Jason supposes, depends on exactly what Sherlock Holmes happens to be doing, or saying, or ignoring at the time. This amendment aside, the mere presence of Sherlock Holmes should not evoke seething fury when the nosy young man hasn't said anything but a name, and it isn't-- it is holding steady at the rational, appropriate mild irritation-- which is a nice reassurance that he, Jason Blood, has things Back Under Control, Where They Should Be.
"Mr. Holmes," he answers from his seated position, and while it would be a stretch indeed to say his voice is warm or friendly, it is as civilly pleasant as he ever has been in their conversations. There is no tension underlying every word, no gritting words out between his teeth.
He winds a strip of cloth around his wrist. In the process of doing this it occurs to him-- distantly, abstractly-- what Holmes is seeing in the room.
Hehhh, he thinks, and would not be entirely able to say whether it is Etrigan's laugh or his own.
"Mind your footing. I'm afraid it's a bit of a mess."
[Location]
That raw, wrung-out laugh, the lack of tension in Jason's person--it does not take Sherlock long to surmise, altogether. Instead of answering just yet he crosses the floor between them in a handful of careful steps through the gore, picking his way through puddles of blood and the entrails and teeth and hair of dead villagers. Careful as he is, his shoes and the cuffs of his trousers are already smeared a bit red when he reaches the basin.
Sherlock peers at Jason again. Then (perhaps oddly at first, to Jason) he sets down his rucksack by the lip of the basin, next to Jason, and shoulders off his windcheater. He wraps that around the book of magic like he's bundling a package and then puts that aside on a dry patch of the floor, leaving him in shirtsleeves in one of those endless lavender Oxfords he always seems to be wearing to the most inappropriate of occasions. That's Sherlock Holmes, it would seem. Can't turn up underdressed to a massacre.
He sits down on the floor next to Jason and the rucksack, smearing Extra blood in a broad streak across his back and the seat of his trousers. They still hold the crease from being ironed this morning. Without preamble he unbuttons the cuffs on his shirtsleeves and pushes them up to bare his bony arms.
"Give me your arm," he says in an indifferent sort of voice. Unlike (what at times seems like) the vast majority of what Sherlock says to Jason Blood, it isn't a question.
[Location]
Some souls run away from a house a-blaze--
Some grope their way forward, like rats in a maze.
He doesn't bother answering, just tracks Holmes's approach. Holmes doesn't speak; all the way to him Holmes doesn't speak. Wonders never cease.
He tilts his head to the side, watching the deliberate, careful gestures of Mr. Sherlock Holmes as Holmes safeguards a-- mm, a book, one that tickles his awareness and brings up a dull memory of a text received that he'd barely read-- and settles down gingerly.
Give me your arm, Holmes says, which Jason was not expecting. There are many responses one might have to an acquaintance, not a particularly liked one, sitting in such a scene. Holmes's words are as measured as his precautions with the book.
Jason finds a smile twitching at his lips, a smile that is, all things considered, quite probably inappropriate; the most benevolent explanation for it would be he still feels relieved, but then, the most benevolent explanation so rarely applies. He pushes the expression from his face, and shrugs, and offers Sherlock his arm.
If Holmes will deduce splendid and aggravating new bits of information from his arm, he finds it hard to care particularly, right now. A bit like being worried about the leak in the roof when the furniture is already floating, so to speak, given the rest of the room.
The cut on the back of his wrist (a spear's tip had come for his belly; he had turned it with the blade and sent the tip scoring his shirt-sleeve and his forearm instead, a nick several inches long but shallow) is not life-threatening, but it is bleeding. Jason pulls away his own improvised binding with a reflexive grimace for the pain, but it's afterthought, it hurts, it's a detail, it's there, somewhere, distant.
"Your laundering bill shall be horrific, Mr. Holmes," is what he says aloud, eyes on Holmes's face.
[Location]
"Unlikely," he says. "I don't there's going to be a laundering bill. With blood in these quantities it's always cheaper to replace--this is a mess," he assesses of Jason's condition altogether, not specifically the cut, which is rather clean. "I'm going to need to clean you up a little if any dressing is going to hold."
The silence in the cavern is devouring--any quaver in his own voice would be pronounced, if he let there be any, and Jason is watching him, isn't he. Sherlock keeps his own eyes on the wound. It'll be difficult to tell if the wound picks up any inflammation, he thinks distantly: Jason's always so feverish. Sherlock pulls out a handful of wipes and a bottle of isopropyl alcohol from the rucksack and puts the alcohol aside from the time being, cleaning up Jason's skin around the wound in a few brisk, industrious motions. He makes a matter-of-fact medic, at least. It's not the first time he's done this.
"It's not this cut I'd be concerned about," he adds without looking up, tossing the soiled wipes aside and unscrewing the cap on the bottle. "Everything on your arms is shallow. You've a puncture wound over your left soleus muscle," Sherlock indicates a dark little stain on Jason's calf with a nod, "and if that scratch over your ribs inflames, breathing is going to be a great deal of fun for you, I'm sure."
He brushes the back of his hand over his cheek, maybe an itch, maybe an anxious habit. It leaves a faint smear over his pallor.
"Hold still," he says unnecessarily. Not that he expects Jason Blood of all people to flinch from rubbing alcohol, right now of all times, but--he doesn't know. It's something you say. This is strange.
[Location]
He continues to watch-- watch Sherlock's brusque motions, professional, so-very-unconcerned with the elephant in the room. He doesn't know what it is he's looking so closely for, but he hungrily watches every twitch of Holmes's fingers, of the muscles in his jaw, all the same.
--no. No, that's a lie. Jason knows what he's looking for, if he is honest with himself, and the knowledge comes with a snigger from the devil, soft in the back of his mind.
He is looking for the same thing Etrigan so often looks for: fear.
Disgust sours in his throat-- not disgust for the bodies and their gruesome injuries, because whether 'real' or not, it's a long long time since Jason was able to manifest disgust for death and its mundane ugliness-- but disgust at himself, at any instance in which he is more like Etrigan.
He stops watching Holmes-- looks away, studies the cavern's far wall instead while Holmes warns him of the coming sting. He nods to show he's heard, balls a hand into a fist.
"Infection," Jason says with a slight pause when the alcohol stings, "is not something I usually need to worry about.
"What did you find?" he asks rather than let a silence follow his words, and nods his chin slightly towards the bundled-up package.
[Location]
"A book of divination," he answers, holding up Jason's hand for his own scrutiny again. He sets it back down and fishes out a box of small adhesive Band-Aids for the smaller cuts. "Or so it appears. I was with Mr Long when I found it. Well, with Mr--Oolong. You know, I'm not entirely sure if dragons abide by honorifics." Sherlock bandages each of the smaller cuts and then moves brusquely on to Jason's other arm with the alcohol. He pushes up Jason's sleeve and sets about his work. He has a light, businesslike way with his hands, as might be expected of a violinist, if not of Sherlock Holmes himself. "It might be of use to me if I can get it to work. I couldn't say. It could be a useless prop."
Sherlock glances back up at Jason and meets his eyes steadily: sometimes he does manage to disappoint Etrigan. "Why?" he asks, not without sardonic implication. "Has Mr Blood developed a sudden interest in what I do with my time?" He looks pale.
[Location]
He's been in the world long enough to realize what those marks mean, after a second's thought. He doesn't need the devil to tell him everything.
So, Holmes has a sordid little bit of his past-- or present? No, none of the needle marks look fresh enough for that.
He half-closes his eyes and lets his head rest against the stone of the wall while Holmes talks (and plays medic, more competently-- Jason has to admit to himself-- than he would have given the younger man credit for).
Of course, with that tendency to stick his nose into other people's business, it would stand to reason that that nose has been smacked a few times, and that patching it up after is a useful skill.
Holmes's pale fingers feel bloodless and cold against his skin, but Jason knows it's merely a function of his own always-a-little-too-warm skin.
There is no real reason for him to tolerate Holmes doing this-- as he'd said, infection isn't a problem for him, and while bleeding all the damn way back to the tram isn't exactly the most enjoyable thing he can think to be doing with his time, it's not the worst either. But Holmes is doing it, and it means he isn't bleeding all the damn way back to the tram, and...
(and he's tired, and his calf throbs and his wrist throbs, and leaving would take effort, and--)
"No," he says to Holmes's sharp question. "I have an ongoing interest in magical books. And in those who would use them, especially with little idea of what they are doing."
He closes his eyes a moment. The responsible thing would be to take the damn thing away from Holmes, which is the sort of thing he's done many times back home-- confiscate this or that dagger or book or necklace before some idiot with more ambition than sense manages to summon something foul-- and he is quite certain that this will lead to an argument he doesn't particularly wish to have right now. Outrage, argument-- argument-- more argument-- Sherlock Holmes pointing out that if somebody would explain the book then he would know what he was doing...
This is almost certainly a bad idea. Etrigan isn't saying anything about it, which reinforces that judgment. He opens his eyes.
"I can look at it for you if you wish."
[Location]
He continues a moment later in explanation, though: "Because either you've lost quite a bit more blood than I thought," he says with a furrow of his brow, "or--"
Sherlock's been wondering himself what he's doing here, either. He hadn't expected to gain anything from it. He doesn't think Jason's incapable of collecting himself eventually and trudging his own painful, bloody way back to the bridge. He's not a field medic, he thinks; he's not a charity, he rarely does a stranger a small kindness, much less an unfriendly acquaintance like Jason Blood. The man can tend to himself, Sherlock imagines: it seems he's been doing it for a very long time. It seems he's most at-home with it.
Sheer curiosity drove him to the cavern, he knows and admits that much. He heard the sounds of something awful and he saw Jason's name and he wanted to know, and so he came. Maybe he shouldn't have. Shouldn'ts are such a distant concept for him when it comes to information. But he learned everything he was looking to learn when he first took stock of Jason, and the blood, and the people, or the remains, anyway. That--that was all very self-evident.
So what is he still doing here?
Because Jason's waiting for him to be repulsed. Because he expects him to repulsed. Because he wants him to be--because Jason is.
Is this pity he feels for Jason Blood? Sherlock wonders at it: it's an uneasy feeling, anyway. He doesn't like to feel pity. He doesn't like receiving it, he prefers to do others a reciprocal justice, if nothing else.
"As much as I value information, I'm not interested in dragging it out of a weary and hypovolemic man," he says curtly. "If you didn't care to tell me yesterday, I can't see how a thorough battering and a short campaign of slaughter would change your mind." He gives Jason a sharp look through narrowed eyes. "Stretch your leg out. Puncture wounds are vile."
It's probably a prop anyway, Sherlock supposes.
[Location]
Holmes breaks off for a few seconds, those considerably-too-perceptive eyes weighing him by Holmes's sharp calipers. Holmes comes to his conclusions, whatsoever they are; favors him with a look of clear displeasure and a bedside manner that could do a crocodile proud. Jason laughs again, as short a sound as the first, and shrugs and gingerly extends his leg as if to say have it your way, then. One hand goes down to help pull the stained, torn fabric of his trousers of the way.
Probably it is the blood loss. Infection may not be an issue for him, but he certainly has no such immunities to something as mundane as low blood pressure, or even shock. Yes, blood loss is a nice, safe excuse for why he's still here.
He inspects his forearm while Holmes delivers competent-if-cool first aid-- less to see the injury then to check whether the cut has broken the line of ink that rings his forearm, the same one Pryor had had to cut when wearing his body, the same one he'd had to have Mick St. John help him repair. Mick St. John is no longer in the city. As the first instance of it had proved, it's damn inconvenient to try to do this one-handed.
The mental image of Sherlock Holmes helping with that, as he is helping right now with the cuts, is absurd enough that it brings another irrelevant smile to his face.
But the tattoo is intact, so there's no need to pursue his punchy humour down that mental path.
"Is the text of the book in the Latin alphabet?" is what he says aloud.
[Location]
His hands are filthy now. He takes a few moments to fix that, scraping away Extra blood, Jason's, dirt, ash, until his fingers are bare and white again, all except for under the nails.
"I thought it was," he gives his eventual answer. "From a distance or out of the corner of my eye it looks it. But when I examine it I don't recognize any of the characters. It stands up well to cryptographic frequency analysis, too. A little too well, in fact. You know, I don't wonder if it is in the Roman alphabet and there's not some sort of," he frowns, "spell or effect or, I don't know, enchantment on it to keep me from reading it. I've no frame of reference."
There is blood in his hair, God only knows how it got there. He's starting to look like he's done a murder, or had one done upon his person. It doesn't bother him just now. "Your ribs now," he orders, imperious.
no subject
He focuses on Holmes's words instead, a decent enough distraction. Off the top of his head he can think of several spells that would obscure a text in the matter described.
"When you attempt to read them, do you get a headache?" he asks, still staring at the far wall. It's some surreal reversal of the questions one asks the injured (how many fingers? where does it hurt?), diagnosing, except he's the one bleeding and there is no particularly good reason for either of them to be offering help to the other. Save what he's already presented to himself as half-reasons.
Ribs, yes; Jason sighs and tugs his shirt free of his trousers, hiking up shirt-and-undershirt until sweaty-and-bloody ribs are bared to the air, as well as the shallow slice that is the source of the blood.
(A sigil of red ink crawls away from Sherlock's sight like a roach scurrying from the light, hides itself somewhere else on Jason's body beneath his shirt.)
"Can you transcribe the script, or does it resist that as well?"
no subject
He shakes his head with a wry twist of his mouth and then carries on like nothing's happened, "If I try to transcribe it by any other method it won't stay in my head. That I know isn't normal. I have an eidetic memory. Photographic. I can pick out the details from a picture after looking at it once. It serves me well with forgeries." You could've done well for yourself appraising art, John told him once, and Sherlock had laughed and leaned on the cafe table by his elbow and said, yes, before I died of boredom. The things you remember.
"Served, I suppose. The forgeries here--" he wipes blood away from the skin of Jason's ribcage before applying the alcohol again, "--tend to be perfect likenesses."
He dresses the wound in silence. When he's finished he rocks back again on his heels, back into the buffer of personal space between himself and Jason Blood that both of them tend to prefer, not just with each other, but with everyone. He meets Jason's eyes, uncharacteristically impassive. "No headache," he says. "No more than the usual. Do you have an insight?"
no subject
He looks back to the wall, nods slightly-and-absently at Holmes's words of having an eidetic memory trumped by the book's protections.
No headache, though. Not Athail's book-bind, then, and no swimming fog or surely Holmes would have mentioned it, so that's three other charms that can be ruled out, and the inability to remember them for transcription puts him in mind of Hermetic methodology...
If Sherlock Holmes is a walking encyclopedia of crime and the methods thereof, Jason Blood is his counterpart when it comes to a breadth of knowledge in the occult. He hasn't the raw power of one born to it, nor the ease and facility with spells that Remus Lupin has displayed to him-- but theoretical knowledge, that he can do.
And running mentally through all the possibilities is better than letting Holmes's words-- perfect likenesses-- linger in his mind like the sight of the imitation people scattered all over the floor.
"I can think of a few possibilities, yes," Jason says aloud, letting his shirt fall back down now that Holmes is done. "Books of this sort are often sealed with a trick or catch that is simplistic once known, but maddening otherwise-- you must open the book to the seventh page rather than the first before being able to read it, or it may only be readable during certain hours, or, or, or. Let me see it and I can tell you more."
And decide if it's something I can leave in your possession.
no subject
Today he eyes Jason briefly as if trying to ascertain if he intends to steal the book from him, then decides for better or for worse that that kind of silly subterfuge isn't really in Jason's character either. If he intended to confiscate the book from Sherlock, he'd already be trying to confiscated, blood loss be damned. He seems that sort of obstinate man.
"All right. But give me your hands first," he orders him with his nose in the air and a handful of tissues extended. "They're bloody."
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he is definitely that sort of obstinate manJason responds to this with another, more pointed look.
"...I can clean my own hands," he says, and takes the tissues. Were he a different fellow than he is, he might have appended a 'mother' onto the end of that.
Some scrubbing later (under his nails is a hopeless case but he'll deal with that later; it's good enough for break-fast, is the phrase that swims into his mind from a memory he cannot recall), he takes the book, turning it over in his hands a moment before even attempting to open it. His fingers trace down the seam of the spine, following the binding; then the edges of the pages with a thoughtful look on his face. Next he sniffs at the book, which gesture might look rather less strange to Sherlock Holmes, all things considered, than it would to many other people.
He opens the book-- several times, letting it fall open in his lap and then shutting it to repeat the gesture, as if to see if it lands in the same open place every time. He raps on the cover with his knuckles, like knocking at a door, before opening the book to the first page.
It's magic, Sherlock! --it was a good deal more impressive when Remus Lupin did it.
What Jason does has the air of some sidewalk mummer making nonsensical gestures, except that there is absolutely nothing of the showman in his motions, and indeed, if one was trying to do a convincing impression of practicing magic for the credulous, one could probably think of more dramatic gesticulations.
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He bypasses the obvious question: what's the book about? Jason's going to volunteer that in a moment if he knows (or he's not, and is going to be a nuisance about it instead, but there's nothing to be done about that). "Is this how you've learnt the rest of your magic?" he asks instead, arms resting on his knees. "From books like this? The Lesser Key of Solomon, that sort of thing, or is that all claptrap?"
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But it's not his job, to give the brat something to do.
Still, there is no reason not to answer a question that doesn't matter, which is how Jason classifies Sherlock's current questions.
"Much of it," he admits without looking up from the book, which he is now attempting read upside-down, it seems.
"As for the Lemegeton: it is half-truths, which most publicly-known books on demons are. Most of the significant occult texts come in two versions: one for the true practitioner, usually with safeguards such as this one possesses, and the other for the fool who seeks a novelty. Calculated disinformation.
"The names of the demons in the Goetia are those of real demons, but nobody could successfully summon one using only the generally available version of the text.
"--ah," Jason says a moment later, some slight satisfaction bleeding into his tone. His right hand (so recently quite bloody) has the finger and thumb touching to make a circle as a child might signify a monocle, through which he is now reading the text, although it appears unchanged to Sherlock's eyes.
"Mmnh. Minor divinatory spells, it would seem. Ecclesiastical Latin, so no earlier than the third century..." he says, half to himself.
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The text still looks the same to him--interesting. Frustrating, but interesting. Sherlock ignores any looks Jason may or may not be giving him and leans away again, making a circle with his own bony fingers experimentally. He peers through that.
"Oh," he says in delight as he recognizes the Roman script and medieval Latin words through his fingers. "Oh, that's more like it."
He's smiling at his little success and at the marvel of it all; he lowers his hand, looks again, raises it again, opens his fingers, closes them. He tries his other hand. He tries making a circle with both hands. Everything's worth testing, after all. Once he's satisfied his impulse to experimentation on this count he makes the circle with his right-hand finger and thumb again and goes back to examining the text.
The smile's replaced with a quizzical frown. Then finally: "--I still can't read it," he says, and bursts out with an incongruous laugh and is smiling again, bright with sheer absurdity. What about that, then. He's been racking his brain over a perplexing magical code, but it turns out the real barrier standing between Sherlock Holmes and the secrets of minor divinatory spells, after all, is the fact that he never took more than one year of Latin in secondary school.
I'll be damned. He laughs again, shaking his head, and leans back on his hands with a scrunch of his nose.
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Jason sits, wordlessly, making his will save to avoid rolling his eyes as Holmes looks-then-doesn't-look, looks-then-doesn't-look, testing out all possible ways through which one can look through one's fingers.
At Holmes's incredulous laugh, Jason shrugs slightly. Whether or not Holmes speaks the language is his own affair-- and truthfully he's relieved that he does not. If nothing else, it imposes an additional barrier of time before Holmes would try anything from this.
He looks through the pages, turning them, quickly deciphering the basic purpose of each incantation. There's a fair bit of theory-- this is a text for beginners, it would seem. Quite a lot of discussion of the zodiac, signs in the ascendant and so forth and so forth; a student's exercise to create one's own star-chart so that one may cast one's divinations at the most fruitful times of the lunar and astrological cycle.
Et cetera.
The actual spells seem largely benign. The compass-spell, a dweomer he remembers having to study as a boy, a very, very long time ago. (A useless spell, really: nature herself provides so many ways to know which way is north that using magic for the purpose seems exorbitant.) A spell for the finding of lost household objects-- he'll admit the praticality of that one. Car keys are the bane of magicians as well as anyone else. The most ambitious of the spells seems nothing more spectacular than a spell to know the week's weather in advance.
There are no demons. There is no fire. There is neither blood nor pain nor malice required for anything in the book.
He closes it and hands it back to Sherlock Holmes.
"Enjoy it, then," he says.
Perhaps the damned novelty will keep him busy.
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The silence unnerves Sherlock and he folds the book in his arms and gets to his feet immediately, curling his fingers around the spine and the pages like he's protecting it from something, or vice versa. He gives Jason Blood one of his cool, disinterested once-overs. He can stand, surely, and he's not in shock. Sherlock's got what he's wanted. He'll find himself resources on the Latin later. Fine.
Idly at the back of his mind he thinks, well, it can't be anything dangerous if he's letting me have it. But dangerous isn't the same as useful, and really at the forefront is a different line of thinking.
Do you know, Mr Blood, Sherlock could say, your behavior completely baffles me. Instead he says shortly, "You should get up. They respawn after a while."
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And there's nothing else to say: any debt (and Jason Blood keeps close accounting of his debts, his obligations, the tally of favours owed and received-- for a magician, they are more than merely social courtesy) he might have incurred by accepting Holmes's aid in bandaging his wounds has now been paid, by his assistance with the book.
Everything is even. It squares nicely. Everything is back to what passes as normal. Etrigan is quieted again
for now, at a cost of nothing more than these... simulacra (preferable to the alternatives, so very preferable)and if there's a deeper cost, a personal cost, there's no point in keeping track of those anymore----and Holmes is occupied, and not asking questions about what had happened here. Well enough. Jason wonders what deductions the fellow's drawn (besides the obvious), but... it doesn't matter.
"Good day to you, Mr. Holmes," Jason says, rather formally, and leans his head back against the fountain's edge to close his eyes a few moments before moving on.
[text]
You are seriously fucked up, Jason Blood.
[text]
[text]
Not that he likely cares but for whatever reason Selina's feeling like being honest.
[text]
[text]
[text]
[text]
[text]
Dear Mr. Blood -- Mr. What? Yes, I know, but it really is! I can't help it, that's his name. Anyway, hush up, I'm writing this.
No apology needed, please. What's this about, then? Shhh. I'm quite in the flush of -- ha ha ha -- shut it! -- in the flush of good health right now. I'm glad to hear you're feeling better as well. In the future, don't feel you need to apologize for things that aren't your doing. ...Horst, what did you do? I'm really not such a shrinking violet as to need that much mollycoddling. And I speak English, if it wasn't clear! You really have got some cheek, you know that? I'm in the middle of something.
Best wishes,
Horst Brauer. Horst WHAT? We'll discuss it later. Put Liesl back in her cage, would you? I think she's ready for a little nap.
[text] *dying here*
He reads the text again.
By the third reading he's parsed it-- a little bemused at himself that it took so long, since of all people he knows what a dialogue sounds like.
The question is who the devil is Brauer speaking to (puns neither intended nor desired). Who is the backdrop for his little communique?
Really, Jason, I waste my lines
On you and your memory so faulty...
Recall: I spoke already of family ties;
Blood and tears are equally salty.
He made a tiny acknowledging noise to himself, and put the tablet back onto his bracelet. He would answer... later. When not dealing with Mr. Holmes.
Accordingly, it is some time later before his text is sent:
Mr. Brauer,
I am British. It is altogether futile to advise me not to apologise.*
Your brother has joined you in the city?
Horst, of course, mentioned no brother in their prior encounter. Jason is idly curious to see how this
verbaltextual sally will be met.(*this appears to have been a joke, stop all presses)
[text]
Dear Mr. Blood. "Mr. Blood."
Yes, my brother has arrived as of -- Give me that! For God's sake, I didn't read it to you incorrectly, he very clearly asked if my brother was with me. Are you absolutely certain you don't know him? Believe me, I would remember him. Alright, is it possible you don't know him, but you did something horrible to him anyway? Excuse me? This man has a ... a curse. A demon, or a -- anyway, I'm just asking you, before I commit to a reply, is it possible you've wronged this man and he would want to hurt you? It's possible, obviously. I certainly don't know anyone by that name. Shit, a demon. Of course it's a demon. It's always a bloody demon. Alright, well, we'll be cautious. Finish your goddamned message, let me think. Yes, alright. Where was I? My brother has arrived as of yesterday morning. It's a comfort to have family closeby in a place like this. Horst. Thank you for inquiring after us.
Fondest regards,
Horst Brauer. Cabal. I've already signed it.
[text]
So Jason stands by a pot of water, waiting for it to boil, while reading and deciphering the next text.
He wonders if he ought tell Horst Brauer-Cabal that every single thing he, and his brother, are saying is being transcribed and sent.
'Ought' is a laden word. It brings ethics into the situation.
Pinch of salt into the water to speed the boil and Jason leans against the counter to type his reply.
If one gets along with one's family members, yes, I suppose so. All luck in settling in, sirs.
(So much for 'oughts'.)
Cabal, Jason thinks, after tapping 'send'. Not quite up there with Blood, perhaps, but when it comes to names that evoke a double-take... Covens and qabbalah and secret societies, oh my. Hmmn.