Chapter 331: Flemish Baroque (1/2)

In the office at her restaurant, Erika was talking to Jason through an incarnation of Shade. After weeks of such communication, it was starting to feel normal which, when she thought about, was rather concerning.

“I told him you had contacts,” Erika said. “What was I supposed to say? That your eyes changed when you became a gestalt entity of body and spirit? I don’t even know what that means.”

”Well,” Jason said, ”it basically means that… actually, I'm still kind of figuring it out.”

“When will you be back?”

“Not until I pick up Emi at school. Will you be coming to the houseboat for dinner?”

“Yeah, although I’m concerned about bringing him to the houseboat. Ian hasn’t forgiven me yet for making him go home and give up the cloud bed.”

“You know that you’re welcome to keep staying here.”

”I just want to maintain some normalcy,” Erika said. ”Is that so bad?”

“I get it,” Jason said. “I just know from experience that when you stop obsessing over normal and give yourself over to magic, life gets amazing.”

“You realise you’re starting to sound religious when you talk like that.”

“Speaking of religious, did anyone tell Great Aunt Marjory about magic yet?”

“No, and we’re not going to,” Erika said. “If she finds out that you came back from the dead, heal the sick and can walk on water, she is not going to keep the secret. Will anyone on talkback radio believe her? Probably not, but she’s already intimated that the devil sent you back. I don’t want her roaming around town yelling ‘false prophet’ at passers-by.”

“That’s fair.”

“You know, Jase, what you said about giving over to magic. It’s not all good. It’s getting harder to go around living my life with everything I’ve learned. How do I treat everything as normal when I know about teleporting, secret monsters and alternate worlds. You’re a sorcerer. It suddenly hit me the other day that you can cure cancer with a literal magic spell. How am I meant to go around living an ordinary life like that?”

“You’re not. There’s a clock running on ordinary life for everyone. The difference is that you get a head start, with the time, knowledge and resources to get ready. I’ve just been waiting for you to accept that so we can move on to the next step.”

“Like Taika.”

“Exactly.”

“How’s he doing?”

“He’s monstering it,” Jason said. “I don’t know who taught that guy to fight but he can fight. A lot like Farrah, actually, so she’s helping him adapt to his new strength and speed.”

When they had discussed essences with Taika, he had ended up not going for the combination Jason had picked out for him. After discussing his options, he had forgone the renewal essence and the immortal confluence it would bring. He had picked out for himself the more economical combination of might, swift and bird that produced the garuda confluence.

“Garuda is the devourer of snakes, bro. That’s hardcore.”

“I hope there’s more to your decision than that,” Farrah had told him.

“Bro, Garuda is the fastest and strongest warrior there is. Speed, strength, skill. No offence, but those powers you picked out would just make me the big, tough, slow guy. I don’t want to accuse you of looking at me and immediately thinking that but you looked at me and immediately thought that.”

“That’s the kind of reasoning we wanted to hear,” Farrah said approvingly. “Also, don’t call me bro.”

Farrah had been concerned that the bird essence might produce some abilities that were less combative and more like the power to talk to birds. That was fine when there were intelligent, magical birds flapping about, but seagulls were less likely to be a combat asset and more likely to keep asking for chips.

Jason had traded with the Network to obtain the much rarer wing essence. The resulting combination would still produce the garuda essence, with a result very much in line with Humphrey. He also had the might and wing essences leading to a supernatural creature confluence, in his case, dragon.

Jason and Farrah had anticipated a power set similar to Humphrey’s, producing a mobile, high-resilience brawler. They had only awakened around a third of Taika’s abilities, but the results, thus far, were falling completely into line. Clive had taught Jason about shaping a power set not by seeking out specific powers, but by aiming for powers within a certain scope.

This was proving out with Taika. Jason was deeply familiar with the Humphrey-style group role, while Farrah knew how to fight like Taika, adapting his approach to his new abilities. His performance had helped convince the Network to grant him a spot as an external auxiliary to their tactical teams. He lacked the independence of Jason and Farrah but had gotten to go face to face with monsters. After the usual reaction of being taken aback when faced with a living, drooling creature, he started going to town on the iron-rank monsters.

There was quite a crowd when Taika had undergone his essence rituals. Jason's family all knew that essences were coming to them and were anxious to see what it looked like. At first, they were quite enthusiastic, up until Jason was hosing the gunk off the newly iron-rank Taika on the rear deck. It was universally agreed that it was the worse thing any of them had ever smelled.

“So, are you spending your day training Taika and the magic soldiers of tomorrow?” Erika asked.

“No, I’ve largely offloaded that on Farrah. She has more experience with the training methods than I do, but I translate concepts better. We’ve fallen into a rhythm where she does the initial training and I help clarify things to the recruits.”

“What are you doing with your day, then?” Erika asked. “Clinic?”

“Yep. I have to say, it feels good to be helping people without killing things. I did a lot of that in my early days over in the other world. I kind of lost track of that as life took over and it’s nice to get back to it.”

“I’m proud of you, little brother,” Erika said. “It’s the one part of all this that isn’t horrifying.”

“It can’t be the only part. I mean, look at how awesome Shade is. He’s like a phone, except snide and somehow British.”

“And flies my daughter around in a rocket suit. Which you have not done again, right?”

“Of course he hasn’t,” Jason said. “Have you, Shade?”

“I find it best not to involve myself in family disputes,” Shade said.

“See?” Jason asked.

“That was not a denial.”

“I didn’t see you complaining when he was a bunch of horses running along the beach at sunset.”

“I don’t think you’re allowed to take horses on that beach,” Erika said weakly.

“The medication will make you feel a little loopy,” the nurse said. “You might also have some mild hallucinations. Most patients report seeing a red glow, possibly some other colours.”

“Are you sure I can’t go in with her?” the girl’s mother asked.

“I’m afraid no one can be in the treatment room,” the nurse said. “That’s for legal and medical reasons. You did sign the non-disclosure, yes?”