Story: Chimera: Class of 666
Part: One "Waking Up"
Chapter: Four"Truth of Lie?"
Authored by:
Hannah Nyland (The Irreverent Revenant)
All Rights Reserved.
Chimera: Class of 666
By Hannah Nyland and Jerad Sayler
“Is
that what these letters and symbols mean?”
I ask, holding it up to my face so the amulet is upside-down and making
the symbols look even less familiar.
He
reaches over slowly and points at the amulet’s base. I am more than happy to
handle it, getting to look at the cool sigils again.
“Now,
without going too deep into the magical traditions of Kabbalah, you will see
that there are 10 spheres all interconnected with lines. Kabbalahist believe
these represent the ten names of God, called the Tetragrammaton. These energy emanations
flow from this top one, called the Crown or Keter, each overflowing vessel
better shapes and distills creation into more elaborate forms for the price of
lost purity. The bottom sphere represents the Earth or Matter. Now, it is no
mistake that Kabbalists have these ten Sephirah and there are 10 types of magic,
the Supernal Arcana. Each sphere is associated with these powers, all coming
from the one pure source at the top.” He taps the top center of the necklace,
bottom center from my perspective.
“Now
Fate and Mind are linked by a different pathway than the traditional ‘location’
of the watchtower of Pandemonium which links these two spheres here, Mind and
Space in the lower center. Now, I’ve always been the best at Mind and Fate,
even better than I am at Space for some reason.
I did some research and found that some especially wise Hebrew
practitioners of this angelic magic assigned obscure archangels to each path. So
I figured I should take on the name: Casstiel. Also known as Cassiel or
Castiel.”
He
leans back and stretches his arms over my head, soliciting a yawn. His phone
buzzes and he looks at the screen.
“Yes,
thank you STARK.” He says under my breath and then hands me the smart phone.
The screen opens up to a Wikipedia page with the entry “Cassiel,” an angel.
There
is more here and Casstiel talks while I read. Cassiel the angel has associations
with the Wheel of Fate and the Hanged Man Tarot cards. Every one of these
topics he sounds like he could write a whole book on... so much ground to cover
and where to start?
The
strange occultic concepts used so casually are being neatly filled away into my
gray matter for later analysis in private. Tone of voice and context go a long
way in understanding what he is saying even if I don’t know what the words mean
yet. The amulet at work again.
I
read the article quickly, mind efficiently sorting the information away. Then I
hand the phone back, giving it a slightly quizzical look as I do so. “Thank you
for indulging me. Looks like I have some research of my own to do. I want to
choose something meaningful for my own Shadow Name.”
Everything
seems to fragile now, I feel how light the cup is as I pick it up, how easily I
could crumble it to dust with one bare hand. The world is so fragile now, the
world is just so much tissue paper.
I
set the cup down gingerly. It’s so easy to forget how physically strong I am at
this point, but then I get reminders like this. However, I have fewer
reservations about having a brain like a supercomputer. It’s soothing, having
the complete jumble of terms of my head filed into perfect, pristine order.
Flawless memory and complete focus. How many times in the past have I wished
for just those abilities? It’s a rush,
but it’s also kind of scary.
I
can’t help but look at the basement around me as he talks. My accelerated brain
is grabbing onto the terms he is throwing down. My mind races and I notice that
everything around me seems so slow and predictable. Joey and Bill talk about
their cars and engineering a cold air exhaust and it is so …boring. Even
Casstiel, without the benefit of his amulet seems pretty plain jane. I turn my
attention back to him.
“It’s not all that complicated. When we meet
again you can ask all the questions you want. I will show you our Sanctum. What
does your schedule look like next weekend?” He asks in a casual tone, still being
careful to remain out of earshot from the others sharing this space, albeit a
ways away.
“Karate
on Saturday, ten to eleven. I should go; I’ve missed it most of this month
already.” I’m out of practice, and at the worst possible time; I’ve got a belt
test coming up, and need all the help I can get. “Aside from that, nothing
really going on.”
“Alright.”
he nods. “But you are going to have to risk taking off the amulet for that. If
no one gives you a bad vibe then I doubt there is anything to worry about.
There is the greater risk of accidentally maiming someone, even without pads of
any kind.
I
wince in agreement. “Yeah. We don’t even use padding most of the time either,
so that could end really badly. No amulet.”
“Okay,
done by eleven,” he follows the logic, “we could do the ‘I don’t feel well, I
am going to bed early’ trick or do you have some other excuse to take off and
be unaccounted for? If I had my way I would be portaling you to San Antonio and
back on Friday night and Saturday night. I have spells that will make up for
lost sleep. We have a lot of ground to cover.”
“Alright,
let’s see. A movie marathon at a friend’s house? That would buy at least six
hours. Or a DnD session; that could take most of the day. Both are pretty plausible,
and they would probably be happy to have me hanging out with someone after the
way I shut off this month. So . . . win-win.”
“Sounds
perfect. If you need to provide realistic place-settings to convince your
parents this is actually happening and these friends exist, I can provide
realistic illusions. But only if it’s necessary.”
“No,
that shouldn’t be necessary. I think they’ll be willing to take it at face
value. Thanks though.”
“Cool.”
Casstiel
glances up and sees Keri… Persephone, checking her wrist in a very obvious way
and glaring at him. He smiles and
nods. “Guess that’s a night… Merry
Christmas.”
“One
more question right now. The rest can wait.” I build up my courage and ask.
“Isn’t it kind of surreal, going back to everyday life and acting like
everything is normal after all of this? How do you deal with that?”
He
shakes his head sadly and sighs. “I wish I knew. The last three years of my
life have been completely bat-shit crazy. When things get intense I catch
myself either going with it or thinking: is this really happening? Am I really
riding a jet-pack toting velociraptor through mankind’s subconscious’
conception of every city messed together on my way to the Death Realm to find a
way to the palace of an Aeon? Yep, this
is happening.” We chuckle and he grins
sheepishly before moving on.
“And
that actually happened by the way, well, at least how much things can really be
said to happen in a dream world. Some things you get used to, and the best
advice I can give you is to try to disconnect from one life when you’re in the
other. Mental separation can help with
the stress just so long as it’s not to the point that it makes you stupid. It’s still one life, your life, and failing
to compare data from both sides of the same coin could be very foolish. ”
I
raise a skeptic eyebrow. “Is that
all? I’ll give the double life a shot I
guess.”
He
smiles knowingly. “I know you can do it. I am lucky, and have a way of judging
someone’s character. Soon you will become skilled in the Mind Arcanum. If you
can do that, you can partition your life by partitioning your mind and make
wise compromises with the gray area in the middle. The most important thing is
to keep you anonymous and protect your loved ones from supernatural scrutiny.”
He
frowns and turns to me, shoulders straight, eyebrows furrowed. The conversation
is swinging back again and you know it. We can’t seem to end on a pleasant
note.
“On
the lucky thing… are you familiar with the Norse god Odin? He tends to bless
people with unstoppable providence only to have them come to horrible ruin at
the end. That’s kind of a thing with me I guess. My cabal got cursed by a very
evil mage. And my original cabal kinda broke up last year. One of my friends is
dead, another one turned went darkside, and the remaining four including me
have some serious psychological and paranormal issues to deal with.”
“Don’t worry, that evil guy is dead. And our
terrible luck wasn’t for nothing, we did
save the world once.” He frowns again. “I’m digressing again. I’m like an old
man who won’t stop talking.” He gives a short bark of a laugh, the conversation
seems to be getting a little uncomfortable for him as well. I just listen and meet the lack of comfort
with silence.
“I guess what I mean to say is that being
friends with me, letting me help you is a double sided blade. There is no way
for you to stay connected with the ones you love and protect them from who you
are at the same time. Some of us try to ride that line, including me, so I
can’t discourage it because I would be a hypocrite. And if you severed all ties
you would lose a huge part of who you are and what you live for.”
His
words make me confront the idea again; that I am endangering my family by my
very presence. Making them targets. Guilt starts to pour in again, but this
time I block it out. This is something that I need to consider.
“My
new Cabal and my old cabal are still loosely associated together, I technically
shouldn’t be in any cabal for reasons you don’t have to worry about right now.
I guess, well, being associated with powerful mages who get in other people’s
coolaid tends to paint targets on them and people around them. We meddle, we
can’t help it, you see bad in the world around you and people suffering
directly in your path and you have to act… and things get out of hand. Do you
understand what I am trying to say? It’s complicated.” For a moment it looks like he is ready to say
more but then he closed his mouth.
“I
think so.” I say, looking back. “I wouldn’t be able to resist meddling either.
And saving the world, well, who could resist?” There’s a slight smile on my
lips again, but only for a second. “I’m sorry. You’ve been through a lot.” I
look away, thinking hard.
Casstiel
waves off my sympathy with his hand, “I’m okay.
You can’t change the past… at least not easily.”
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