Post by Toz76 on Oct 31, 2023 14:48:18 GMT -5
15 YEARS BEFORE THE RISE OF THE HORNED ONE
The night that the Blood Alchemist met Vivian Bloodsphere, he didn’t make a great first impression.
In fairness, she did swoop in to rescue him while he was in the middle of dissecting a corpse. He was wearing a lab coat over a graphic T-shirt emblazoned with characters from My Hero Academia, and his whole outfit had the odd blood splatter on it.
Vivian didn’t really notice at first. After she killed Dominguez and forced Ricketts to flee, she began lobbing attacks at the other paladins outside. “We’ve gotta leave immediately. You’ve got three minutes to pack up your essentials before we’re out of here.”
“Where are we going?” asked the Blood Alchemist, still too shocked to move.
“I’ll explain on the way. Now do you want to live long enough to lose your virginity or not?”
“Hey, I already—” the Blood Alchemist began, before deciding that responding to the quip was way more of a virgin move than actually being a virgin.
Packing wasn’t that hard. Clothes were already in a suitcase, ready to go in case of an emergency like this. The Philosopher’s Stone was already safe in his pocket. His tools, his spell components, all easily packed away. When Vivian turned to check on him, he had put everything safely in his backpack and was trying to fit as many mangas in his suitcase as possible.
“Leave the comic books, let’s go!” Vivian said.
“But these chapters haven’t been released in North America yet! They’re irreplaceable!”
“Your skull is irreplaceable! Now let’s get moving!” Vivian extended a hand to the Blood Alchemist, who hesitantly took it.
A massive explosion from the dying Enforcer Blanc rocked the building, but Vivian and the Blood Alchemist were already out the back door, levitating the suitcase so it didn’t drag on the ground.
They ran a few blocks away before reaching a real clunker of a car, a beat up old Nissan that had a backseat in the same way that a cliff with a collapsing wooden fence at the edge of it has a guardrail. The suitcase and backpack were unceremoniously tossed in the backseat, and Vivian started the car as the Blood Alchemist buckled into the passenger seat. Even these two relatively short people were cramped in the car.
“So, Hohenheim. That’s a castle in Germany, right? Cool mage name.”
“I... didn’t actually know that. Hohenheim... it’s from an anime I like.”
“Oh.”
There was an awkward silence as Vivian drove into the night.
“Okay, listen,” the Blood Alchemist said finally, to break the silence. “I’m Edward. Not my real name, but you know, safety. Who are you, and where are we going?”
“I’m Vivian. Not my real name, but...” Vivian kept her eyes on the road as she spoke. “You know the deal. I was sent to find you by his greatness, the Bronze Mage.”
“His greatness?” Edward asked. “Is this a cult thing, or like, a sex thing?”
“Neither! Neither.” Vivian said quickly. “I grew up in a cult, so I hate that shit, and the Bronze Mage is too old for me. By like, 400 years.”
“Then why is he ‘his greatness’?” Edward asked.
“Because,” Vivian said, “he’s the High Priest of the Great Horned Beast, the Destroyer, the being that will bring about an eternal reign of terror on this earth.”
“Ah, a cult thing, I see.” Edward began considering whether he could get away with all his belongings without Vivian frying him to a cinder.
“It’s not a cult! I would know better than most. But the Horned One is real, and he’s worth following.”
“Uh huh.” Edward glanced at the speedometer- 110 kilometers and accelerating. Too fast for a duck-and-roll exit.
“Anyway, Blackmagei—she’s really nice, you should meet her—she heard about you through the grapevine, and the Bronze Mage and Bloodlust thought your knowledge of alchemy and blood magic would be helpful in our efforts to summon the Horned One.”
“Who the hell is Bloodlust?” Edward asked.
“He’s the Bronze Mage’s second-in-command. To be honest, I don’t like him, he seems really insincere.”
“Bloodlust. What a stupid name,” said the Blood Alchemist.
“I agree,” said Vivian Bloodsphere.
“So... what do I get out of this?” Edward asked at last.
“A lab in Diablo Tower to continue your research, assistance from some of the greatest mages on earth, food and lodging, and a place in the armies of the Horned One when the time comes to raze the earth,” Vivian replied.
“I’ll have to meet this Bronze Mage before I can make a decision,” Edward said.
“Of course. Get some sleep, we’ll be taking a ferry across the border and we’ll probably get there by daybreak.”
“No offense, but fuck no am I going to sleep while I’m alone in a car with a strange woman who is gonna smuggle me across a border.”
Vivian cracked a smile for the first time. “That’s probably fair. I wouldn’t trust me either.”
*****
To her parents and childhood friends, Vivian was Claire Moseby, a sweet little Mormon girl. She grew up in Utah, an unremarkable childhood full of repression.
As she aged, she began to push against the faith of her community, as many youths are wont to do. She chose a college in Portland, Oregon, to get away from her family and try to discover who she was on her own. As it turned out, her own neuroses and awkwardness were a bigger obstacle than the Mormon upbringing. But she eventually came out of her shell and made a few friends. They viewed her as a naïve, sheltered girl, who would turn red at the slightest mention of anything even a little bit scandalous or untoward. But they loved her all the same.
Early in her sophomore year of college, she was invited to a real college party for the first time. About thirty people crowded into an apartment on the eighth floor of some complex she’d never been to before. There was alcohol, of course, and every twenty minutes a dozen or so bodies would cram into the kitchen for a shot. Someone somewhere had lit a joint, and a faint cloud of smoke now lingered in the room. The hottest music of 2007 was pumping from someone’s Zune at a too-loud volume, adding to the disorienting air.
Vivian decided to glue herself to the wall and observe. This party was beginning to reach the edge of what she was willing to put up with. She clutched a beer in one hand and took a sip every few seconds, to look like she was having fun.
Her friend Mark slid up next to her, speaking loudly to be heard over the music. “Yo, Claire! How’s the party?”
“Fine.” Vivian took another performative sip of her drink. She had been staring off into the distance, watching a crowd of people dance. There was one woman who kept catching her attention, a tall woman in long sleeves who moved with precision, her hands always above her head.
“Who’s that chick?” Vivian pointed to the tall woman.
“Oh, that’s Stella. She’s actually a dude, y’know.” Forgive Mark, it was 2007 and the language we now use to talk of trans people was not widely known yet.
“Who’s that guy?” Vivian pointed to the man next to him, a tall man with a shaved head and baggy sweats.
“That’s Sean. Cool guy. You gonna try and hit that?”
“Eww, no!” Vivian was no longer as prudish as she once was, but a casual hookup at a party seemed unwise.
“You should talk to him! Make some friends! Have fun! It’s a paaaaaaaaarty, Claire!”
Lana, Mark’s girlfriend and Vivian’s roommate, approached Mark from behind. “Come on, Mark, they’re doing another shot.”
“Come on, Claire, do a shot with us!” Mark said.
Vivian felt the weight of the beer can in her hand. It was empty. When had it gotten empty?
“Fuck it, let’s take a shot.”
One shot turned into three. One can of beer turned into several. Vivian’s self-control had vanished in a drunken haze. The next couple of hours became a blur. Vivian was dancing for a while, she knew that. She had an image of her grinding on Sean, of Stella giving her a high-five, but nothing more than fragments.
But towards the end of the night, as she was sitting on a beanbag chair waiting for the room to stop spinning, someone approached her. Dominic, she vaguely remembered from an introduction two shots ago. He sat next to her on the beanbag and put his arm around her.
“Hey, Claire, how’s the party?”
His breath reeked of tin foil and fish. He had shaved the sides of his head in an attempt to look cool that in actuality made him look rather stupid. Vivian did not want him sharing her beanbag.
“’s fine, I’m having fun.” Vivian made a gesture that doubled as an attempt to shove Dominic away. It didn’t work.
“Yeah, I bet. Matt said he saw you drink like five beers.”
“Sum’n like that.” She was slurring her words, lucidity a distant memory, with her only clear thought being how to politely get herself away from Dominic.
“Y’know, there’s an empty bedroom upstairs. Y’wanna go up and--?”
“No thanks. ‘m good.” Vivian stood to leave, to get away from this guy.
“Hey, babe, don’t be like that.” Dominic stood and grabbed her arm. Vivian lurched to a halt. “I hear you don’t get out much. You need this.”
“I don’t feel like it.” Vivian tried to pull away, but Dominic pulled back. Vivian reeled and fell backwards, landing prone on the beanbag chair.
Dominic leaned over her. Vivian felt hot tuna breath on her chin.
“Tha’s more like it... less have some fun, eh?” Dominic moved in for a kiss.
Synapses in Vivian’s brain fired in a way they had never fired before. She made a hand motion unfamiliar to her. Suddenly, a sphere of red liquid appeared between the two of them, and it exploded. Dominic was knocked to his feet, and a spray of what appeared to be blood covered every surface on this half of the room.
Everyone turned to look at Vivian, lying on a beanbag chair covered in blood. Neither her nor Dominic were bleeding, and there was no apparent source for the blood. It began to drip from the ceiling.
A few people screamed. Someone fainted.
Vivian had enough lucidity to know she needed to leave. She stood and lurched out the front door. A trio of girls who were sharing a joint in the hallway shrieked as she passed. She lurched to a stairwell and threw up over the side onto the landing below. She felt drained. Her legs gave out. The last thing she remembered was hands catching her as she fell.
She awoke on an unfamiliar couch with a pounding headache. A glass of water and some clean clothes sat on a coffee table beside her, as well as a large mixing bowl.
“If you’re gonna puke again, do it in the bowl, please. This is my roommate’s couch.”
Vivian looked up to identify the source of the voice. Seated in a chair across from her, limbs folded like a praying mantis, was Stella.
“Stella? What... what happened?”
“Police said it was a bunch of cranberry juice mixed with vodka. The hosts are pissed that their shit got ruined, but I managed to pin the blame on Dominic for you. What a fucking douche.” Stella’s voice was dark and soft, but the anger in it was clear.
“Where did it come from?”
“That’s what I want to know.” Stella leaned forward to look more closely at Vivian. “Where did that liquid come from?”
“I dunno.” Vivian furrowed her brows, tried to remember. “Dominic was leaning over me... he tried to kiss me... I didn’t want him to. So I... I dunno.”
“You acted on instinct.” Stella nodded. “Very impressive. I’m guessing it was your first time?”
“First time what?”
“Using magic.”
Even with Vivian’s alcohol-dulled wits, this statement managed to get to her. “Magic?”
Stella smirked. “Thought so.” She snapped her fingers and a ball of light appeared above her, lighting up the room. Vivian stared at the ball of light suspended in midair in awe.
“Listen, your roommate is ready to pick you up whenever you’re ready to go home, but we need to talk sometime about your powers and how to control them. In the meantime... don’t tell anyone about this, okay? It stays between us.”
Vivian slowly pulled herself to a sitting position. “Why is it secret?”
“Trust me. There are some dangerous people out there determined to keep it a secret. It’s better to keep this stuff on the down low. I learned that the hard way.”
“I need to know more.”
“You need rest. We’ll talk more soon, I promise. Are you ready to go home?”
“I think so... but what should I do before then?”
Stella, who was busy composing a text on a flip phone, paused to think. “Take deep breaths. Try to calm yourself. Then, imagine what you want to do. Really focus. Start small. Lifting small objects, things like that. The trick is to get your emotions under control so you don’t cover anything else in fruit juice.”
Vivian stared at this mysterious woman as she worked on her text. This weird blonde was now her only key to understanding what had happened that night. If magic is really real, what does that mean? Everything Vivian thought she understood was shaken by this. She watched Stella work, noticed large wounds below her wrists on both arms as she texted. The right spot for scars from a suicide attempt, but too big and circular. Who the hell was she?
Stella pocketed the cell. “Alright, Claire, your roommate will be here in five. Anything else before you go? Need to throw up again? Want more water?”
Vivian got to her feet with some difficulty. “Who are you? Who are you, really?”
Stella rolled up her sleeves, revealing the wounds much more clearly. A nickel-sized hole through each arm, just below the wrist, with a slight trickle of blood oozing from each but disappearing before it flowed too far.
“I am Stella Igmata, and I might be the Messiah.”
*****
Edward the Blood Alchemist awoke suddenly. He hadn’t even realized he’d fallen asleep.
The car was on a ferry now. It was dark, and they were surrounded by cars and trucks on all sides. Vivian sat in the driver’s seat, staring out the window at nothing in particular. At some point, she’d thrown a jacket over him, presumably to hide the bloodstains on his clothes.
Edward took this opportunity to study Vivian’s face in detail for the first time. She looked to be in her mid-twenties, but the bags under her eyes coupled with the dim yellow light inside the ferry made the brunette look older. She suddenly seemed less like a threat, more like a tired woman who’d been through far too much.
Vivian noticed Edward stirring and snapped out of her reverie. “Hey, you’re awake! We’ve still got a while till we make landfall, wanna go up and get a snack or something?”
That suggested made Edward notice a ravenous hunger in his stomach he hadn’t noticed until now.
“Yeah, let’s grab a bite.”
“Thank fuck, I’m starving and I can’t leave you unaccompanied just in case.” Vivian turned to get out of the car. “Your stuff will be safe here, I promise. This car is warded.”
Edward donned the jacket, and the two made their way to the upper deck of the ferry, which was mostly deserted. They made their way to a little café amidships, where Vivian ordered coffee and a pain au chocolat for herself. Edward, after some consideration, got a pre-packaged ham sandwich and an energy drink.
The two took a seat by a window. Outside, the Salish Sea was shrouded in an early-morning fog. The first rays of dawn were just beginning to shine, giving the mists an alien quality.
Vivian added three sugars to her coffee, took a big sip, and immediately burned her tongue. Edward couldn’t help but chuckle at her.
Vivian quickly deflected. “So, you’ve been slicing up bodies on two continents. Why?”
Edward took a moment to respond, because his mouth was full of sandwich. “Don’t you already know?”
Vivian shook her head. “They told me you were doing experiments, but they didn’t say what. Are you a necromancer?”
“Kind of.” Edward took a sip of his drink. “I’ve actually been looking for the secret to immortality.”
“Why does immortality require so much death?” Vivian asked this question in a very neutral tone, no judgement, as if she was asking why someone used three eggs instead of four in a recipe.
“Well, it’s equivalent exchange, right?” Edward said. “Life and death, they’re two sides of the same coin, a binary, a dichotomy. To get more of one, you need the other. But specifically, I’m trying to synthesize an elixir from organs. I suspect there’s a combination of specific organs and moral characteristics that can be used to create an elixir of long life.” Edward had not really had the opportunity to explain his research before, and was getting a bit excited. “So I tried the obvious stuff—heart of a virgin, brain of a murderer, liver of an alcoholic—but so far, no luck. Now I’ve begun mixing essences from different people, seeing if that will have any effect. My current theory is that three parts virgin heart, two parts miser spleen, and seven parts adulterer kidney is the key, but there’s a missing fourth ingredient, and that’s what I’ve been working on- at first I assumed it was brain stem, but I recently ran across the possibility that a fungal solution would provide the stability I’m seeking—”
“Wow, Ed, that’s a really cool horror movie concept,” Vivian said loudly, noticing a couple odd glances as Edward’s volume got louder and more excitable. “But, you know,” she said, returning her voice to a lower volume, “the Horned One can provide longer life to all its followers.”
“Can it?” Edward said. “So you’ve been granted the gift of long life?”
“Well, no... not yet. But once it comes to Earth, all its most loyal followers will be given the gift!”
“Of course.” Edward raised an eyebrow cynically as he took another bite.
“I know how it sounds, but it’s all true. When you speak to the Bronze Mage, you’ll see.”
“Well, I guess I’ll find out,” Edward replied, clearly unconvinced.
The rest of the meal passed in an awkward silence, as the duo appraised one another.
Vivian still wasn’t sure what to make of Edward. Brilliant? Probably. Insane? Almost definitely. Indifferent to human life? Guaranteed. And yet, there was a certain gentleness in his face. Or maybe it was just naivete. His hair was bleached blonde, but poorly, and the natural black showed through at the roots. This was a man who cared about appearances, but not enough to put any real effort in. Or perhaps he simply was so used to being alone that he’d let himself go.
Edward was very confident in his appraisal of Vivian. She was being manipulated. This “Bronze Mage” was taking advantage of a young woman to further his worship of a nonexistent god. That wasn’t an insult to Vivian, better women then her had been taken in by such charlatans, but he expected the Bronze Mage was a bad actor. At best, a useful ally to dispose of when he is no longer useful, at worse an active threat to be eliminated immediately.
But if he did have the key to immortality...
The night that the Blood Alchemist met Vivian Bloodsphere, he didn’t make a great first impression.
In fairness, she did swoop in to rescue him while he was in the middle of dissecting a corpse. He was wearing a lab coat over a graphic T-shirt emblazoned with characters from My Hero Academia, and his whole outfit had the odd blood splatter on it.
Vivian didn’t really notice at first. After she killed Dominguez and forced Ricketts to flee, she began lobbing attacks at the other paladins outside. “We’ve gotta leave immediately. You’ve got three minutes to pack up your essentials before we’re out of here.”
“Where are we going?” asked the Blood Alchemist, still too shocked to move.
“I’ll explain on the way. Now do you want to live long enough to lose your virginity or not?”
“Hey, I already—” the Blood Alchemist began, before deciding that responding to the quip was way more of a virgin move than actually being a virgin.
Packing wasn’t that hard. Clothes were already in a suitcase, ready to go in case of an emergency like this. The Philosopher’s Stone was already safe in his pocket. His tools, his spell components, all easily packed away. When Vivian turned to check on him, he had put everything safely in his backpack and was trying to fit as many mangas in his suitcase as possible.
“Leave the comic books, let’s go!” Vivian said.
“But these chapters haven’t been released in North America yet! They’re irreplaceable!”
“Your skull is irreplaceable! Now let’s get moving!” Vivian extended a hand to the Blood Alchemist, who hesitantly took it.
A massive explosion from the dying Enforcer Blanc rocked the building, but Vivian and the Blood Alchemist were already out the back door, levitating the suitcase so it didn’t drag on the ground.
They ran a few blocks away before reaching a real clunker of a car, a beat up old Nissan that had a backseat in the same way that a cliff with a collapsing wooden fence at the edge of it has a guardrail. The suitcase and backpack were unceremoniously tossed in the backseat, and Vivian started the car as the Blood Alchemist buckled into the passenger seat. Even these two relatively short people were cramped in the car.
“So, Hohenheim. That’s a castle in Germany, right? Cool mage name.”
“I... didn’t actually know that. Hohenheim... it’s from an anime I like.”
“Oh.”
There was an awkward silence as Vivian drove into the night.
“Okay, listen,” the Blood Alchemist said finally, to break the silence. “I’m Edward. Not my real name, but you know, safety. Who are you, and where are we going?”
“I’m Vivian. Not my real name, but...” Vivian kept her eyes on the road as she spoke. “You know the deal. I was sent to find you by his greatness, the Bronze Mage.”
“His greatness?” Edward asked. “Is this a cult thing, or like, a sex thing?”
“Neither! Neither.” Vivian said quickly. “I grew up in a cult, so I hate that shit, and the Bronze Mage is too old for me. By like, 400 years.”
“Then why is he ‘his greatness’?” Edward asked.
“Because,” Vivian said, “he’s the High Priest of the Great Horned Beast, the Destroyer, the being that will bring about an eternal reign of terror on this earth.”
“Ah, a cult thing, I see.” Edward began considering whether he could get away with all his belongings without Vivian frying him to a cinder.
“It’s not a cult! I would know better than most. But the Horned One is real, and he’s worth following.”
“Uh huh.” Edward glanced at the speedometer- 110 kilometers and accelerating. Too fast for a duck-and-roll exit.
“Anyway, Blackmagei—she’s really nice, you should meet her—she heard about you through the grapevine, and the Bronze Mage and Bloodlust thought your knowledge of alchemy and blood magic would be helpful in our efforts to summon the Horned One.”
“Who the hell is Bloodlust?” Edward asked.
“He’s the Bronze Mage’s second-in-command. To be honest, I don’t like him, he seems really insincere.”
“Bloodlust. What a stupid name,” said the Blood Alchemist.
“I agree,” said Vivian Bloodsphere.
“So... what do I get out of this?” Edward asked at last.
“A lab in Diablo Tower to continue your research, assistance from some of the greatest mages on earth, food and lodging, and a place in the armies of the Horned One when the time comes to raze the earth,” Vivian replied.
“I’ll have to meet this Bronze Mage before I can make a decision,” Edward said.
“Of course. Get some sleep, we’ll be taking a ferry across the border and we’ll probably get there by daybreak.”
“No offense, but fuck no am I going to sleep while I’m alone in a car with a strange woman who is gonna smuggle me across a border.”
Vivian cracked a smile for the first time. “That’s probably fair. I wouldn’t trust me either.”
*****
To her parents and childhood friends, Vivian was Claire Moseby, a sweet little Mormon girl. She grew up in Utah, an unremarkable childhood full of repression.
As she aged, she began to push against the faith of her community, as many youths are wont to do. She chose a college in Portland, Oregon, to get away from her family and try to discover who she was on her own. As it turned out, her own neuroses and awkwardness were a bigger obstacle than the Mormon upbringing. But she eventually came out of her shell and made a few friends. They viewed her as a naïve, sheltered girl, who would turn red at the slightest mention of anything even a little bit scandalous or untoward. But they loved her all the same.
Early in her sophomore year of college, she was invited to a real college party for the first time. About thirty people crowded into an apartment on the eighth floor of some complex she’d never been to before. There was alcohol, of course, and every twenty minutes a dozen or so bodies would cram into the kitchen for a shot. Someone somewhere had lit a joint, and a faint cloud of smoke now lingered in the room. The hottest music of 2007 was pumping from someone’s Zune at a too-loud volume, adding to the disorienting air.
Vivian decided to glue herself to the wall and observe. This party was beginning to reach the edge of what she was willing to put up with. She clutched a beer in one hand and took a sip every few seconds, to look like she was having fun.
Her friend Mark slid up next to her, speaking loudly to be heard over the music. “Yo, Claire! How’s the party?”
“Fine.” Vivian took another performative sip of her drink. She had been staring off into the distance, watching a crowd of people dance. There was one woman who kept catching her attention, a tall woman in long sleeves who moved with precision, her hands always above her head.
“Who’s that chick?” Vivian pointed to the tall woman.
“Oh, that’s Stella. She’s actually a dude, y’know.” Forgive Mark, it was 2007 and the language we now use to talk of trans people was not widely known yet.
“Who’s that guy?” Vivian pointed to the man next to him, a tall man with a shaved head and baggy sweats.
“That’s Sean. Cool guy. You gonna try and hit that?”
“Eww, no!” Vivian was no longer as prudish as she once was, but a casual hookup at a party seemed unwise.
“You should talk to him! Make some friends! Have fun! It’s a paaaaaaaaarty, Claire!”
Lana, Mark’s girlfriend and Vivian’s roommate, approached Mark from behind. “Come on, Mark, they’re doing another shot.”
“Come on, Claire, do a shot with us!” Mark said.
Vivian felt the weight of the beer can in her hand. It was empty. When had it gotten empty?
“Fuck it, let’s take a shot.”
One shot turned into three. One can of beer turned into several. Vivian’s self-control had vanished in a drunken haze. The next couple of hours became a blur. Vivian was dancing for a while, she knew that. She had an image of her grinding on Sean, of Stella giving her a high-five, but nothing more than fragments.
But towards the end of the night, as she was sitting on a beanbag chair waiting for the room to stop spinning, someone approached her. Dominic, she vaguely remembered from an introduction two shots ago. He sat next to her on the beanbag and put his arm around her.
“Hey, Claire, how’s the party?”
His breath reeked of tin foil and fish. He had shaved the sides of his head in an attempt to look cool that in actuality made him look rather stupid. Vivian did not want him sharing her beanbag.
“’s fine, I’m having fun.” Vivian made a gesture that doubled as an attempt to shove Dominic away. It didn’t work.
“Yeah, I bet. Matt said he saw you drink like five beers.”
“Sum’n like that.” She was slurring her words, lucidity a distant memory, with her only clear thought being how to politely get herself away from Dominic.
“Y’know, there’s an empty bedroom upstairs. Y’wanna go up and--?”
“No thanks. ‘m good.” Vivian stood to leave, to get away from this guy.
“Hey, babe, don’t be like that.” Dominic stood and grabbed her arm. Vivian lurched to a halt. “I hear you don’t get out much. You need this.”
“I don’t feel like it.” Vivian tried to pull away, but Dominic pulled back. Vivian reeled and fell backwards, landing prone on the beanbag chair.
Dominic leaned over her. Vivian felt hot tuna breath on her chin.
“Tha’s more like it... less have some fun, eh?” Dominic moved in for a kiss.
Synapses in Vivian’s brain fired in a way they had never fired before. She made a hand motion unfamiliar to her. Suddenly, a sphere of red liquid appeared between the two of them, and it exploded. Dominic was knocked to his feet, and a spray of what appeared to be blood covered every surface on this half of the room.
Everyone turned to look at Vivian, lying on a beanbag chair covered in blood. Neither her nor Dominic were bleeding, and there was no apparent source for the blood. It began to drip from the ceiling.
A few people screamed. Someone fainted.
Vivian had enough lucidity to know she needed to leave. She stood and lurched out the front door. A trio of girls who were sharing a joint in the hallway shrieked as she passed. She lurched to a stairwell and threw up over the side onto the landing below. She felt drained. Her legs gave out. The last thing she remembered was hands catching her as she fell.
She awoke on an unfamiliar couch with a pounding headache. A glass of water and some clean clothes sat on a coffee table beside her, as well as a large mixing bowl.
“If you’re gonna puke again, do it in the bowl, please. This is my roommate’s couch.”
Vivian looked up to identify the source of the voice. Seated in a chair across from her, limbs folded like a praying mantis, was Stella.
“Stella? What... what happened?”
“Police said it was a bunch of cranberry juice mixed with vodka. The hosts are pissed that their shit got ruined, but I managed to pin the blame on Dominic for you. What a fucking douche.” Stella’s voice was dark and soft, but the anger in it was clear.
“Where did it come from?”
“That’s what I want to know.” Stella leaned forward to look more closely at Vivian. “Where did that liquid come from?”
“I dunno.” Vivian furrowed her brows, tried to remember. “Dominic was leaning over me... he tried to kiss me... I didn’t want him to. So I... I dunno.”
“You acted on instinct.” Stella nodded. “Very impressive. I’m guessing it was your first time?”
“First time what?”
“Using magic.”
Even with Vivian’s alcohol-dulled wits, this statement managed to get to her. “Magic?”
Stella smirked. “Thought so.” She snapped her fingers and a ball of light appeared above her, lighting up the room. Vivian stared at the ball of light suspended in midair in awe.
“Listen, your roommate is ready to pick you up whenever you’re ready to go home, but we need to talk sometime about your powers and how to control them. In the meantime... don’t tell anyone about this, okay? It stays between us.”
Vivian slowly pulled herself to a sitting position. “Why is it secret?”
“Trust me. There are some dangerous people out there determined to keep it a secret. It’s better to keep this stuff on the down low. I learned that the hard way.”
“I need to know more.”
“You need rest. We’ll talk more soon, I promise. Are you ready to go home?”
“I think so... but what should I do before then?”
Stella, who was busy composing a text on a flip phone, paused to think. “Take deep breaths. Try to calm yourself. Then, imagine what you want to do. Really focus. Start small. Lifting small objects, things like that. The trick is to get your emotions under control so you don’t cover anything else in fruit juice.”
Vivian stared at this mysterious woman as she worked on her text. This weird blonde was now her only key to understanding what had happened that night. If magic is really real, what does that mean? Everything Vivian thought she understood was shaken by this. She watched Stella work, noticed large wounds below her wrists on both arms as she texted. The right spot for scars from a suicide attempt, but too big and circular. Who the hell was she?
Stella pocketed the cell. “Alright, Claire, your roommate will be here in five. Anything else before you go? Need to throw up again? Want more water?”
Vivian got to her feet with some difficulty. “Who are you? Who are you, really?”
Stella rolled up her sleeves, revealing the wounds much more clearly. A nickel-sized hole through each arm, just below the wrist, with a slight trickle of blood oozing from each but disappearing before it flowed too far.
“I am Stella Igmata, and I might be the Messiah.”
*****
Edward the Blood Alchemist awoke suddenly. He hadn’t even realized he’d fallen asleep.
The car was on a ferry now. It was dark, and they were surrounded by cars and trucks on all sides. Vivian sat in the driver’s seat, staring out the window at nothing in particular. At some point, she’d thrown a jacket over him, presumably to hide the bloodstains on his clothes.
Edward took this opportunity to study Vivian’s face in detail for the first time. She looked to be in her mid-twenties, but the bags under her eyes coupled with the dim yellow light inside the ferry made the brunette look older. She suddenly seemed less like a threat, more like a tired woman who’d been through far too much.
Vivian noticed Edward stirring and snapped out of her reverie. “Hey, you’re awake! We’ve still got a while till we make landfall, wanna go up and get a snack or something?”
That suggested made Edward notice a ravenous hunger in his stomach he hadn’t noticed until now.
“Yeah, let’s grab a bite.”
“Thank fuck, I’m starving and I can’t leave you unaccompanied just in case.” Vivian turned to get out of the car. “Your stuff will be safe here, I promise. This car is warded.”
Edward donned the jacket, and the two made their way to the upper deck of the ferry, which was mostly deserted. They made their way to a little café amidships, where Vivian ordered coffee and a pain au chocolat for herself. Edward, after some consideration, got a pre-packaged ham sandwich and an energy drink.
The two took a seat by a window. Outside, the Salish Sea was shrouded in an early-morning fog. The first rays of dawn were just beginning to shine, giving the mists an alien quality.
Vivian added three sugars to her coffee, took a big sip, and immediately burned her tongue. Edward couldn’t help but chuckle at her.
Vivian quickly deflected. “So, you’ve been slicing up bodies on two continents. Why?”
Edward took a moment to respond, because his mouth was full of sandwich. “Don’t you already know?”
Vivian shook her head. “They told me you were doing experiments, but they didn’t say what. Are you a necromancer?”
“Kind of.” Edward took a sip of his drink. “I’ve actually been looking for the secret to immortality.”
“Why does immortality require so much death?” Vivian asked this question in a very neutral tone, no judgement, as if she was asking why someone used three eggs instead of four in a recipe.
“Well, it’s equivalent exchange, right?” Edward said. “Life and death, they’re two sides of the same coin, a binary, a dichotomy. To get more of one, you need the other. But specifically, I’m trying to synthesize an elixir from organs. I suspect there’s a combination of specific organs and moral characteristics that can be used to create an elixir of long life.” Edward had not really had the opportunity to explain his research before, and was getting a bit excited. “So I tried the obvious stuff—heart of a virgin, brain of a murderer, liver of an alcoholic—but so far, no luck. Now I’ve begun mixing essences from different people, seeing if that will have any effect. My current theory is that three parts virgin heart, two parts miser spleen, and seven parts adulterer kidney is the key, but there’s a missing fourth ingredient, and that’s what I’ve been working on- at first I assumed it was brain stem, but I recently ran across the possibility that a fungal solution would provide the stability I’m seeking—”
“Wow, Ed, that’s a really cool horror movie concept,” Vivian said loudly, noticing a couple odd glances as Edward’s volume got louder and more excitable. “But, you know,” she said, returning her voice to a lower volume, “the Horned One can provide longer life to all its followers.”
“Can it?” Edward said. “So you’ve been granted the gift of long life?”
“Well, no... not yet. But once it comes to Earth, all its most loyal followers will be given the gift!”
“Of course.” Edward raised an eyebrow cynically as he took another bite.
“I know how it sounds, but it’s all true. When you speak to the Bronze Mage, you’ll see.”
“Well, I guess I’ll find out,” Edward replied, clearly unconvinced.
The rest of the meal passed in an awkward silence, as the duo appraised one another.
Vivian still wasn’t sure what to make of Edward. Brilliant? Probably. Insane? Almost definitely. Indifferent to human life? Guaranteed. And yet, there was a certain gentleness in his face. Or maybe it was just naivete. His hair was bleached blonde, but poorly, and the natural black showed through at the roots. This was a man who cared about appearances, but not enough to put any real effort in. Or perhaps he simply was so used to being alone that he’d let himself go.
Edward was very confident in his appraisal of Vivian. She was being manipulated. This “Bronze Mage” was taking advantage of a young woman to further his worship of a nonexistent god. That wasn’t an insult to Vivian, better women then her had been taken in by such charlatans, but he expected the Bronze Mage was a bad actor. At best, a useful ally to dispose of when he is no longer useful, at worse an active threat to be eliminated immediately.
But if he did have the key to immortality...