//------------------------------// // Act Twenty-One: The Orchestra Pit // Story: Delinquency // by Daemon McRae //------------------------------// Act Twenty-One: The Orchestra Pit Deep Treble didn’t ask for much from life. He wanted, like many other teenagers, to be popular. Noticed, even admired, which was a small contributing factor to why he kept doing this ungrateful, horrible job every day. He wanted his parents to get along, of course, but that was less of a pipe dream and more of an urban legend. He would very much enjoy not being here right now. However, on the very top of his list right now (beating the option to leave only by a small margin, naturally) was the desire to understand exactly why his best friend in the world, the most steadfast and bravest person he knew, was currently shaking like a leaf on a kitchen floor in a haunted house while talking to a dead person in a voice like gravel and grave whispers. It could be argued that Spooky Bones wasn’t actually brave, as bravery was often seen as action in the face of fear, but instead, fearless. Treble had seen the kid literally shove a demon (a lesser one, of course, more of an imp, but still) headfirst into a hellmouth with his bare hands and stomp on its head until is disappeared into the aether. The moments where Spooks were generally scared were few and far between, as he tended to treat horrible and evil things with a kind of dispassionate exasperation that one would normally reserve for a repeatedly clogging toilet. Treble had a suspicion that Bones’ internal monologue was just the word ‘Again?’ on a loop. However, standing where he was, seeing the skinny, quiet boy shake like a rattle, DT saw Spooky as something he rarely considered, even taking into account the kid’s small frame: frail. “So, for those of us who haven’t inherited a supernatural penchant for corpse-bothering?” DT asked, trying to look unconcerned in the face of a glaring red flag. Bones didn’t seem to notice. “Give me a minute,” he said quietly, in a voice that didn’t really offer any room for arguing. Turning his attention back to the corpse, he asked, [How does the key work? What happens if we burn it?] The corpse turned its head, as if it had never heard those words before. Spooks knew, though, that the dead retained their knowledge, if not all their memories, of living, and they didn’t stop learning just because they were dead. Knowledge could be imprinted on the soul. It’s how some people learned magic. The less favorable kinds. [The key cannot exist without the lock. Neither the lock without the key. With no lock, the door cannot close.] Spooks motioned in a slight panic behind him. “Don’t burn the book. Do that, and everything goes to shit,” he grunted behind him. Treble nodded, holding the book closer to his person, but keeping himself close to the furnace, if only to keep the damn zombies off of him. He hated zombies. Especially grabby ones. Spooks kept going. [Then why do you want the book? Why not let it burn? You work for Culling, don’t you?] The dead boy shook his head. [No.] ----------------------------- “What do you mean, his father?” Raven demanded. Now that the subject of her family had reared its head, she had taken a solid lead in the conversation. Part of her wanted to turn it into an interrogation, but that involved having some leverage in the matter, which did not. “I thought Culling Song was the murderer? Everyone always said ‘Don’t be like Culling Song.’” Tide gave a hefty and impressive sigh for someone who had no lungs. “Little miss, you come from a highly corrupt, money-grubbing, highly influential family with a skewed sense of morals and a history of macabre and depraved mystical dealings. Do you really think only one person in the entirety of the family was responsible for all those murders? And if they were, if it really was just one bad apple, do you really think you’d have even heard of him? The Inkwells would have done everything in their power to silence an existence like that. You’re talking about Big City Power in a small town. Forget big fish in a small pond, they’re sharks in the fishbowl. No doubt they left you to this house just to keep the only decent person amongst them from ruining things for the rest.” Raven balked at that. “But… my father left me this house!” she argued. “He was a fine man!” With a tilt of the head, Tide considered the woman. “Hmmm. I knew your father. He didn’t know me, of course, but most of the family doesn’t. We all know you, but you rarely know us. Your father was… decent. Maybe not a perfect human being, but certainly a measure above the tried and true garbage that used to traipse through this house. Maybe he thought you could do some good. Or at least no more evil. Still, back to topic. Culling Song was not, in fact, a horrible person. He was like you: a gem in a sack of coal. His father, uncles, even an aunt or two, they were the monsters. Feeding us to the magic like treats after taking the dog for a walk. He, Culling, I mean, was the only one who saw to it that we received, if not proper burials, at least some measure of respect. He even found a way in his family’s horrible book of magic, to let us live out some semblance of life. Even with our souls bound to our bodies, in a house as lively and well-read as this, we could still… learn. Experience things. Why do you think we were so adamant you stall they hell out of our library?” Twilight felt an eyebrow twitch. “Excuse me? That was you?! I thought that was Song!” Tide shrugged. “In a way, it was. His spirit still roams the house, naturally. He found a way to lock himself in here, with all of us, to keep his father’s spirit from running rampant with the power of a hundred trapped souls. Every once in a while, he saves up enough power for us to leave our bodies, which we normally use to bother the riffraff, or peruse our precious library. Of course, there are rooms even there that we are barred from. This family’s history with unpleasant magic is older even than I am. Older than the house. Did you ever bother to wonder,” she asked Raven, “Why the house was a perfect square? Because it was built as a giant lock on an even larger door. Symmetry has power in magic. That’s why circles are so effective. But building a house in a perfect circle not only draws unwanted attention, it’s rather damn difficult. So, we have a perfect square. And look at me, getting sidetracked again. By now I’m sure you’ve figured out the seal in the small house, haven’t you? How it’s basically a ritual sacrifice on tap, to which your family has been feeding children for decades?” Indigo shivered. “Yeah, that thing. Wasn’t that like, a way to empower a ghost, or something?” “Interesting,” Tide considered the injured girl. “I’d figured at least one of you would have played the part of the foolish athlete. But yes, in a way, you are right. It did serve to empower the ghost. But not just for the fun of it. The ghost, Culling’s father, was supposed to be a battering ram. In fact, he could very well still serve that purpose, if you all fail. Or if one of those boys burns that damnable book you all found.” “A battering ram? For the door you mentioned?” Twilight inquired. “Does he want to break back in to the world of the living?” ------------------------ “Not quite,” Spooks explained, having been asked a similar question by his friends. Treble had tried to decipher the text, but his Latin was so rusty as to be considered a viable component in thermite. The zombies still filled a good half of the room, but with Treble guarding the furnace, and Spooks’ rather illuminating, if taxing, conversation with the dead kid, they’d settled for standing guard, lest any of the four boys did something unconscionably stupid. “He wants into a world called the Tenebrae. And before you ask, no, you haven’t heard of it. Very, very, very few people have. I’m talking a laughable percentage of a laughable percentage of people everywhere.” Rubble adjusted his seat to face Spooky properly. “So what the fuck IS IT? And why does master doucheghost want in?” Spooky Bones sighed, and straightened his posture; a sure sign he was about to give a very long-winded, and important, lecture. “The Tenebrae is also known as The First Dimension. Do any of you know what primordial ooze is?” Dusty nodded. “It’s the hypothetical environment predating natural life in which the first natural molecules and structures were formed.” Literally everyone in the room looked at him. He thought he could even feel the zombies giving him the eye. “I thought it was like Gak or something when I was a kid and looked up where to buy it. I thought it was cool.” “Right,” Spooks said slowly. “Coming back from left field,” to which Dusty gave him the finger, “That’s basically it. The First Dimension is like the primordial ooze for the multiverse. Now, I know I’ve explained multiverse theory to you-” “Which is pretty much just ‘the multiverse’ at this point,” Rubble groaned. “-also right. But each of those universes has to come from somewhere. Even the Outer Rings can’t just pop in out of fucking nowhere. There has to be at least some spark, some source of energy and material, for these dimensions to come into being. That’s where the First Dimension comes into play. It’s the fuel for the fires that forge other dimensions. The matter and antimatter and everything in between that spawns all the horrible and ordinary and magical absolute bullshit we fight all the time now. That’s what Culling’s father is trying to break into: the spawning pool of the omniverse.” “Holy Jesus rocket manger CHRIST that’s scary,” Treble shuddered. Rubble gave him a sidewas glance. “We need to get you away from Sonata.” “He’s not wrong,” Spooks groaned. “If this guy gets into the Tenebrae, he could literally remold any new universe that comes out to his liking. With all the power he’s gathered, he could very well survive down there long enough to learn how to create whole new ones.” “Which is super bad because...” Dusty asked, not quite having kept pace with the seriousness of the situation. “Imagine being able to create Outer Rings whenever you wanted,” Bones explained. “And then throwing them around at will. Remember the marble bag metaphor? It’d be like throwing new marbles in whenever you wanted, of any kind you wanted, and shaking the bag. We could be looking at new Beast attacks on an alarming frequency.” Rubble groaned and threw his head back. “Once a lifetime is alarming, Spooks! How alarming are we talking?” “Daily.” ----------------------------- “You mean,” Twilight said in a very small voice, “That the… thing that attacked our school earlier this month, we could be dealing with something like that every day?” Tide nodded. “Easily. Even if Mr. Song knew what he was doing, had a user’s manual and everything, there’s literally no way to guarantee control over a power like that. He’d be lighting matches in a gas tank and think himself a god when the whole shebang went up. Fortunately, you all have three very important and powerful tools at your disposal. The first of which is obviously moi,” she said with no lack of pride. “And Culling. Between the two of us, we should be able to limit Mr. Song’s control over events in the house. Culling has already been doing so, drawing on the power his father has accumulated to keep him at bay in the ethereal. Otherwise the lot of you would already be dead. No offense.” Raven thought of the horrible phenomena that had already happened. “None taken. What’s number two?” “You have the key to the lock. As Spooky Bones, that adorably doomed child, had learned, and is relaying to his friends, the book you all found is a rather important text. You are all aware of the Inkwell’s blatant abuse of the power of the Book of Morrighan?” As the girls nodded, she pressed on, “Well, it wasn’t like the Templars were fools. Selfish, self-righteous, dangerous zealots, but not fools. That text is the latest, most complete, and rarest edition of the Malleus Maleficarum to ever be printed. It’s mere presence directly interferes with the magic from the Crow’s Hand. It also holds a religious ritual that can, in fact, turn any space it’s performed on into hallowed ground, rendering any obscene magics performed here absolutely useless.” The girls seemed to brighten, even embolden, at the thought of a useful tool, a proper weapon to use against the house. “But wait, how come I didn’t recognize it?” Twilight asked. “I mean, it’s Latin, which I’m well versed in, but even I couldn’t make out all the words in it. I didn’t even know it WAS a copy of the Witches Hammer.” Tide nodded. “Which brings me to your third and perhaps most useful tool. Mr. Bones. The boy can speak, and read the language of the dead, which was used in the crafting of the final print of the Malleus. Where else would they get a spell to instantly consecrate any ground you set foot on? The boy can read the book. Perform the rituals. And if worse comes to worse, he can act as your last line of defense. Most people who, by some horrific cosmic tragedy, find themselves in The First, would instantly go mad, self-destruct, or decompose into their basest possible elements. Your friend, unfortunately for him, is uniquely qualified to survive in that hell hole, if only long enough to keep Mr. Song from getting what he wants.” ------------------------ The three boys regarded Spooks with the kind of wayward suspicion one might approach a turncoat extremist. “And how, exactly,” Treble said slowly, “Do you know that? Hell, how do you even KNOW about the Tenebrae? You said it was some stupidly low amount of people in the world that even knew it existed?!” Spooky regarded them all with a hollow gaze. “Because I’ve seen it before. When I was ten years old.”