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indriSUMMARY: Giles and Ethan, the electric Kool-Aid funky Satan groove year, in the early seventies. Rated M. Spoilers to Band Candy. Acknowledgements and disclaimers.
73.
It was Randall who interrupted Ethan as he worked. Ethan had been really enjoying working through the early sections of the Badescu. It was an intricate work, the kind of book that would have been beyond him only six months before. Even now, reviewing the introduction, he knew there were subtleties that he might not fully understand for years. It was a graceful work, and the elegance of its spells was in marked contrast with the pedestrian utilitarianism of something like Stegun and Abramowitz. He felt as if were glimpsing part of a great whole, and Badescu's amused asides left him with the hope that the great sorcerer's mind was similar to his own.
He'd been so enthralled by the second chapter that he hadn't really taken in that everything was too quiet below. Until, that was, he heard Randall's heavy tread on the stairs and Randall's knock on the door.
"The spell's not working," Randall said. He looked rather haggard. Ethan knew he'd been working long hours on his art.
"Take a week off," Ethan said.
Randall considered. This was one of the things Ethan had come to like about him most, that he always considered Ethan's suggestions. Even when Ethan's suggestions were deliberately ridiculous, Randall would consider them with mock gravitas and reply in kind.
"I think it's good for my art," Randall said.
That was good enough for Ethan. They went downstairs. "Couldn't Rupert work it out?" asked Ethan. "He worked on the spell as well."
But when they got to the drawing room, Rupert looked like shit, unshaven and very tired. Diedre was poking at the circle. Stan and Tom were there, wincing over freshly-applied tattoos.
"Is it because we've increased the number of people?" Randall asked.
Ethan looked over the altar, the candles and the chalked-up circle. He honestly considered lying then as he didn't fancy having almost the entire household delirious from channelling Eyghon. But he didn't like lying to Randall. Instead he said, "There's a mistake here in the circle. And you'll need to rearrange the altar a little." It worried him that this wasn't obvious to Rupert. "Who's the lead caster?"
"I am," said Rupert.
"Let Diedre do it tonight."
"Don't want to," said Diedre.
Four somewhat pleading faces looked up at him: Randall and Diedre, plus Stan and Tom, who would want the pain of their tattoos to prove worth it. Rupert wasn't looking at him, though, but was lighting himself a cigarette.
"I'll do it then," said Ethan. "Just this once." He thought with regret of the Badescu.
He set things up and they got into a circle. "Ten minutes each and no more," he said. When Diedre protested, he told her wasn't sure if his concentration would hold out long enough for the expanded group. They took it in turns.
Rupert looked instantly better, which Ethan was pleased to see, as the demon possessed him. Stan and Tom both reacted with a lot of shouting, with Stan's language being considerably colourful and inventive. Diedre was ecstatic; Randall seemed to fill out and glow. Then it was Ethan's turn and he ceased watching the others.
When he was himself again, with the circle broken and everyone running around the room, he started laughing. How funny and stupid everyone looked. How funny and stupid the whole world was. He laughed and laughed and laughed until Diedre came up and slapped him. Then he laughed again, because the thought of Diedre slapping anyone was just hilarious.
Eventually he had to stop because his throat and head and ribs ached from it. He held his head in his hands. Ripper came up to him them, all booted and dressed to go out.
"Let's go," Rupert said.
It was a humid night. Out on the pavement, Ripper lit up another cigarette. Ethan put on his sunglasses. Ripper took the sunglasses from him and slipped them into a shirt pocket.
"It's dead around here," Ripper said. "Let's go where it's busy."
Ethan didn't really keep track of where they were walking. They seemed to be walking a long time. Cars went past. He caught glimpses of the moon, high above. There were more people on the streets.
Ripper flexed his hands. "What'll we do?"
"I have an idea," Ethan said. "Can you find me a place overlooking a crowd?"
"It's two a.m.," said Ripper. He considered. "All right."
After more walking, Ripper brought them to a street where there was a long and impatient queue waiting to get in somewhere -- perhaps a club. He pointed Ethan up a fire escape. They paused on the first landing.
"What are you going to do?"
"I'm going to test out a spell I'm making for Adrienne. You'll have to help me."
"What?"
"You'll recognise it in a minute. But I'll need a few drops of your blood."
Ethan sat cross-legged on the fire escape floor. It was very far from perfect as a location: Ripper had to stand a few steps down, as there wasn't room enough for the both of them, and the slatted surface wasn't suitable for a circle. Ethan had to pull off his jacket and draw on the back on that.
"It's the animal illusion spell," said Ripper.
"Blood," said Ethan. "Three drops here, please," he said, pointing.
"Is this going to be fun?"
"Very."
Ethan calmed himself, concentrated, then cast the spell.
Down on the pavement stood a gryphon.
"Fuck me," said Ripper.
Ethan put it through its paces. It shook its eagle head. Its beak opened and its wings spread. He got it to pace up and down.
Ripper said, still sounding startled, "I thought you had to have help to do that."
Ethan shrugged. "I've been practising." He got the gryphon to walk up and down again. "Bugger," he said. Now he was sure of it.
"What?"
"It's not walking right. The gait should be more lionish. It's not right at all." He slammed his palm into the floor. "Let's go to the zoo. We'll wake up the lions and I'll watch them walk."
"No," said Ripper.
"No?"
"The zoo's bloody miles back. It looks fine."
"It looks unnatural."
"It's a gryphon!" Ripper said. "They're not in this dimension any more! No-one can tell!"
"I can tell," said Ethan, hotly.
"It's good enough," said Ripper. "Now what do you want me to do?"
"Take her for a walk," said Ethan.
Ripper glanced over his shoulder towards the nightclub queue.
"Thank you," he said.
74.
They were all up in the attic, watching television and eating fish and chips, when the doorbell rang.
"Ignore it," said Diedre.
"It could be important," said Randall.
"Let Ripper get it," said Ethan. "He likes bounding up and down stairs."
Rupert had to clear boxes out of the way to get to the front door. Adrienne shouted down, "We have every legal right to be here." The empty house next door had a "For Sale" sign on it now, and everyone was worried that the squat might be next. Ripper roughed up his hair and assumed a menacing expression, just in case.
The man standing on the front porch was about Ripper's age. He had a long moustache and sideburns and was wearing a band t-shirt, but his jeans were pressed and he was wearing office shoes.
"Who are you?" snarled Ripper.
"Philip," the man squeaked. "Philip Henry. I've just moved in across the road."
"So you're not here about the squat then?"
"No! No. I mean, I heard it was a squat, but I just wanted to get to know the neighbours." Philip extended his hand, and Rupert's years of proper upbringing meant that he found himself shaking it.
"I suppose you can come in then," he said. "We're all upstairs."
Rupert led him through the box-maze of the hallway and up to the attic. Whenever he looked back, the man was looking about himself wildly, at the paintings on the ceiling and at the dirt on the floor. As they got close to the attic, they could hear the buzz of the TV, and Rupert could hear Diedre saying, "What I love about it is that I feel so free, as if I could do anything," and Ethan's reply, "But you always can do anything, what difference could Eyghon make to that?" As they stepped into the room, the others were all piled together on the sofa or on beanbags at its feet, as if they were a single organism.
"This is a new neighbour," Ripper said. "This is Phil."
Everyone waved. "Hello, Phil!"
"I prefer Philip actually." He had a touch of a Sussex accent underneath, Ripper thought.
Diedre offered a bottle of clear liquid and Randall somehow found a clean glass on the floor, so Ripper poured Phil a drink.
"We're watching Panorama," Diedre said. "Do you watch it?"
He did tonight. Randall moved over a little so there was room on a beanbag for him. Rupert took his seat next to Ethan on the sofa and draped a hand over his thigh. As the programme played, Phil looked around the room, at its remnants of merry-go-round wallpaper, its carpetless floor and curtainless windows. He grimaced at every mouthful of his drink.
"I've just moved to London," he said, to no-one's great surprise, after Panorama had ended. "I've got a job nearby. I've always wanted to live in London." He kept looking at Diedre, probably because she wasn't wearing a bra. She didn't have all that much there, but her nipples were pressed up against the cloth of her sleeveless shirt. "You've got a tattoo." Maybe he'd never seen a woman with one before.
"Yes," said Diedre. "We all do. It's for a spell."
"Shut up," said Ethan.
Diedre leant low towards Philip. There was a good chance he could see all the way down her top now. "I'm a witch."
"Well, this has been charming, Philip," said Ethan, "but I think it's time you went home."
"I'll show you out," Diedre said. Tom was away at his mother's for the week.
When they were out of the room, Randall said, "I should be painting," and left too. The front door shut downstairs but there was no sign of Diedre's return.
Adrienne stood up. "She's still off her face, isn't she? I should stop her."
"She can't be that bad," Ripper told her. "It's not like it's a Saturday night." A couple of weekends ago, Diedre had tried to get Adrienne to go to bed with her: Ripper had had heard Adrienne saying, "We've been through this before, Dee, I'm Kinsey zero."
"She needs to break up with Tom anyway," Ethan said. "This might be a good way to do it." He twisted around on the sofa, and suddenly Ripper's legs were squashed into the seat as Ethan sat on his lap, facing him. Ripper reached up to brush at his lips.
"I need to talk to you both," said Adrienne, "about work." They turned to look at her. "The job's on Thursday."
"No, no," said Ethan. "It can't be Thursday. Change it to a Tuesday."
"I can't change the date. Can you still do it?"
"Yes," Ethan said. "We tried the spell out on Saturday. It worked a treat."
"Good," she said. "This has to go perfectly." And then she left the room before Ethan had even undone one of his buttons.
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73.
It was Randall who interrupted Ethan as he worked. Ethan had been really enjoying working through the early sections of the Badescu. It was an intricate work, the kind of book that would have been beyond him only six months before. Even now, reviewing the introduction, he knew there were subtleties that he might not fully understand for years. It was a graceful work, and the elegance of its spells was in marked contrast with the pedestrian utilitarianism of something like Stegun and Abramowitz. He felt as if were glimpsing part of a great whole, and Badescu's amused asides left him with the hope that the great sorcerer's mind was similar to his own.
He'd been so enthralled by the second chapter that he hadn't really taken in that everything was too quiet below. Until, that was, he heard Randall's heavy tread on the stairs and Randall's knock on the door.
"The spell's not working," Randall said. He looked rather haggard. Ethan knew he'd been working long hours on his art.
"Take a week off," Ethan said.
Randall considered. This was one of the things Ethan had come to like about him most, that he always considered Ethan's suggestions. Even when Ethan's suggestions were deliberately ridiculous, Randall would consider them with mock gravitas and reply in kind.
"I think it's good for my art," Randall said.
That was good enough for Ethan. They went downstairs. "Couldn't Rupert work it out?" asked Ethan. "He worked on the spell as well."
But when they got to the drawing room, Rupert looked like shit, unshaven and very tired. Diedre was poking at the circle. Stan and Tom were there, wincing over freshly-applied tattoos.
"Is it because we've increased the number of people?" Randall asked.
Ethan looked over the altar, the candles and the chalked-up circle. He honestly considered lying then as he didn't fancy having almost the entire household delirious from channelling Eyghon. But he didn't like lying to Randall. Instead he said, "There's a mistake here in the circle. And you'll need to rearrange the altar a little." It worried him that this wasn't obvious to Rupert. "Who's the lead caster?"
"I am," said Rupert.
"Let Diedre do it tonight."
"Don't want to," said Diedre.
Four somewhat pleading faces looked up at him: Randall and Diedre, plus Stan and Tom, who would want the pain of their tattoos to prove worth it. Rupert wasn't looking at him, though, but was lighting himself a cigarette.
"I'll do it then," said Ethan. "Just this once." He thought with regret of the Badescu.
He set things up and they got into a circle. "Ten minutes each and no more," he said. When Diedre protested, he told her wasn't sure if his concentration would hold out long enough for the expanded group. They took it in turns.
Rupert looked instantly better, which Ethan was pleased to see, as the demon possessed him. Stan and Tom both reacted with a lot of shouting, with Stan's language being considerably colourful and inventive. Diedre was ecstatic; Randall seemed to fill out and glow. Then it was Ethan's turn and he ceased watching the others.
When he was himself again, with the circle broken and everyone running around the room, he started laughing. How funny and stupid everyone looked. How funny and stupid the whole world was. He laughed and laughed and laughed until Diedre came up and slapped him. Then he laughed again, because the thought of Diedre slapping anyone was just hilarious.
Eventually he had to stop because his throat and head and ribs ached from it. He held his head in his hands. Ripper came up to him them, all booted and dressed to go out.
"Let's go," Rupert said.
It was a humid night. Out on the pavement, Ripper lit up another cigarette. Ethan put on his sunglasses. Ripper took the sunglasses from him and slipped them into a shirt pocket.
"It's dead around here," Ripper said. "Let's go where it's busy."
Ethan didn't really keep track of where they were walking. They seemed to be walking a long time. Cars went past. He caught glimpses of the moon, high above. There were more people on the streets.
Ripper flexed his hands. "What'll we do?"
"I have an idea," Ethan said. "Can you find me a place overlooking a crowd?"
"It's two a.m.," said Ripper. He considered. "All right."
After more walking, Ripper brought them to a street where there was a long and impatient queue waiting to get in somewhere -- perhaps a club. He pointed Ethan up a fire escape. They paused on the first landing.
"What are you going to do?"
"I'm going to test out a spell I'm making for Adrienne. You'll have to help me."
"What?"
"You'll recognise it in a minute. But I'll need a few drops of your blood."
Ethan sat cross-legged on the fire escape floor. It was very far from perfect as a location: Ripper had to stand a few steps down, as there wasn't room enough for the both of them, and the slatted surface wasn't suitable for a circle. Ethan had to pull off his jacket and draw on the back on that.
"It's the animal illusion spell," said Ripper.
"Blood," said Ethan. "Three drops here, please," he said, pointing.
"Is this going to be fun?"
"Very."
Ethan calmed himself, concentrated, then cast the spell.
Down on the pavement stood a gryphon.
"Fuck me," said Ripper.
Ethan put it through its paces. It shook its eagle head. Its beak opened and its wings spread. He got it to pace up and down.
Ripper said, still sounding startled, "I thought you had to have help to do that."
Ethan shrugged. "I've been practising." He got the gryphon to walk up and down again. "Bugger," he said. Now he was sure of it.
"What?"
"It's not walking right. The gait should be more lionish. It's not right at all." He slammed his palm into the floor. "Let's go to the zoo. We'll wake up the lions and I'll watch them walk."
"No," said Ripper.
"No?"
"The zoo's bloody miles back. It looks fine."
"It looks unnatural."
"It's a gryphon!" Ripper said. "They're not in this dimension any more! No-one can tell!"
"I can tell," said Ethan, hotly.
"It's good enough," said Ripper. "Now what do you want me to do?"
"Take her for a walk," said Ethan.
Ripper glanced over his shoulder towards the nightclub queue.
"Thank you," he said.
74.
They were all up in the attic, watching television and eating fish and chips, when the doorbell rang.
"Ignore it," said Diedre.
"It could be important," said Randall.
"Let Ripper get it," said Ethan. "He likes bounding up and down stairs."
Rupert had to clear boxes out of the way to get to the front door. Adrienne shouted down, "We have every legal right to be here." The empty house next door had a "For Sale" sign on it now, and everyone was worried that the squat might be next. Ripper roughed up his hair and assumed a menacing expression, just in case.
The man standing on the front porch was about Ripper's age. He had a long moustache and sideburns and was wearing a band t-shirt, but his jeans were pressed and he was wearing office shoes.
"Who are you?" snarled Ripper.
"Philip," the man squeaked. "Philip Henry. I've just moved in across the road."
"So you're not here about the squat then?"
"No! No. I mean, I heard it was a squat, but I just wanted to get to know the neighbours." Philip extended his hand, and Rupert's years of proper upbringing meant that he found himself shaking it.
"I suppose you can come in then," he said. "We're all upstairs."
Rupert led him through the box-maze of the hallway and up to the attic. Whenever he looked back, the man was looking about himself wildly, at the paintings on the ceiling and at the dirt on the floor. As they got close to the attic, they could hear the buzz of the TV, and Rupert could hear Diedre saying, "What I love about it is that I feel so free, as if I could do anything," and Ethan's reply, "But you always can do anything, what difference could Eyghon make to that?" As they stepped into the room, the others were all piled together on the sofa or on beanbags at its feet, as if they were a single organism.
"This is a new neighbour," Ripper said. "This is Phil."
Everyone waved. "Hello, Phil!"
"I prefer Philip actually." He had a touch of a Sussex accent underneath, Ripper thought.
Diedre offered a bottle of clear liquid and Randall somehow found a clean glass on the floor, so Ripper poured Phil a drink.
"We're watching Panorama," Diedre said. "Do you watch it?"
He did tonight. Randall moved over a little so there was room on a beanbag for him. Rupert took his seat next to Ethan on the sofa and draped a hand over his thigh. As the programme played, Phil looked around the room, at its remnants of merry-go-round wallpaper, its carpetless floor and curtainless windows. He grimaced at every mouthful of his drink.
"I've just moved to London," he said, to no-one's great surprise, after Panorama had ended. "I've got a job nearby. I've always wanted to live in London." He kept looking at Diedre, probably because she wasn't wearing a bra. She didn't have all that much there, but her nipples were pressed up against the cloth of her sleeveless shirt. "You've got a tattoo." Maybe he'd never seen a woman with one before.
"Yes," said Diedre. "We all do. It's for a spell."
"Shut up," said Ethan.
Diedre leant low towards Philip. There was a good chance he could see all the way down her top now. "I'm a witch."
"Well, this has been charming, Philip," said Ethan, "but I think it's time you went home."
"I'll show you out," Diedre said. Tom was away at his mother's for the week.
When they were out of the room, Randall said, "I should be painting," and left too. The front door shut downstairs but there was no sign of Diedre's return.
Adrienne stood up. "She's still off her face, isn't she? I should stop her."
"She can't be that bad," Ripper told her. "It's not like it's a Saturday night." A couple of weekends ago, Diedre had tried to get Adrienne to go to bed with her: Ripper had had heard Adrienne saying, "We've been through this before, Dee, I'm Kinsey zero."
"She needs to break up with Tom anyway," Ethan said. "This might be a good way to do it." He twisted around on the sofa, and suddenly Ripper's legs were squashed into the seat as Ethan sat on his lap, facing him. Ripper reached up to brush at his lips.
"I need to talk to you both," said Adrienne, "about work." They turned to look at her. "The job's on Thursday."
"No, no," said Ethan. "It can't be Thursday. Change it to a Tuesday."
"I can't change the date. Can you still do it?"
"Yes," Ethan said. "We tried the spell out on Saturday. It worked a treat."
"Good," she said. "This has to go perfectly." And then she left the room before Ethan had even undone one of his buttons.
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Date: 2011-09-14 04:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-26 11:31 am (UTC)