Toaru Majutsu no Index:GoldenSS
Genesis Testament – A Certain Magical Index SS[edit]
It was the late 19th century.
The Isis-Urania Temple was located in a corner of the British capital of London. Or an apartment that went by that name was.
This is the story of the era before Aleister came knocking at that door. The story of, in some ways, a more peaceful time.
Mina could be succinctly described as a diligent and sheltered young lady who was therefore easily deceived.
Annie Elizabeth Fredericka Horniman had always seen it that way.
That was, in fact, Annie’s impetus for joining the Golden cabal.
She was worried about Mina.
She couldn’t let that clueless girl get anywhere near the topics of Asian teas or New World harbor construction. She would undoubtedly fall prey to some get-rich-quick scam. She deserved to live a life free of those uglier parts of the world. Taking over the family business could fall to her older brother who loved all that complicated stuff while Mina married someone she truly loved. No, she didn’t even need to marry. She should just forget matters of gender and choose to spend her life with me instea-
“Mina, do you take Mathers to be your lawfully wedded husband and accept the new name of Mina Mathers?”
“I do. I am overjoyed that all of you in the Golden cabal would hold this ceremony for us.”
…
Annie puffed her cheeks out all on her own. She was also a bit teary-eyed.
A wonderfully blissful scene played out before her eyes.
(…)
It was dazzling. The light was so bright she thought it would kill her. At this point, she wished she could just turn into a slug.
(I didn’t join the cabal to hand my cute Mina over to that sketchy man!!)
William Wynn Westcott sternly read through the newspaper.
He was one of the three founders of the Golden cabal.
“Jack the Ripper, huh?”
That was also happening at this time. The gruesome serial killings had greatly stimulated the people’s baser emotions, but they ironically also helped ring the alarm about the British Empire’s stratified society. They proved that poverty and fear existed even in the country praised as the top of the world.
Jack the Ripper’s aims were of course unknown.
Psychology was still in its infancy, so they would have a hard time working out his identity.
“It’s sad, really. This has caused such an uproar, yet the famous Scotland Yard has no leads on a culprit. Even this article is only taking about it like it’s a thing of the past when the killer might still be walking these streets with us.”
Whatever his purpose, the explosive power of the killer’s wicked mind had shaken the public as he worked toward achieving it. He had created a colossal social phenomenon well beyond anything a single criminal was capable of. To put it in Golden terms, he was a dangerous creature who specialized in harnessing Qliphothic forces. The sooner he was caught, the better.
The Isis-Urania Temple – or the apartment that bore that name – was yet again thick with the scent of cheap oil burning. The lamp on the table had no deep meaning related to ancient Egypt or the rose and the cross – it was simply a way to cut down on operating costs. They wanted to pay as little as possible for electricity and other utilities.
The Lady of the Masquerade Ball, who wore a gaudy red party dress and kept her mask on even in the cabal’s secret base, lounged on the sofa and puffed on a long, skinny pipe. Her other hand held a brandy glass. It was still morning, but she had gone for a double. This was the side of the famous actress she kept hidden from the audience. The smooth mask had no eyes or mouth, yet the end of pipe and the edge of the glass somehow passed through. Almost like the mask itself were made of smoke or liquid.
She gained a Lilith-like glow when inebriated and she spoke while lying on the sofa like a feline beast.
“Oh? Mr. Coroner, I didn’t realize you were assigned to East End.”
“I’m not, which is why it’s so frustrating. I would get it if this was some one-man war against the wealthy or against the soldiers laying waste to the colonies, but he’s only targeting women who sell their bodies. They’re in a precarious enough position as it is, so this is absolutely unforgivable. How does getting rid of them improve the country? He must not understand the structural problems that force those women into that line of business in the first place.”
As you can see, Westcott had a generous and caring heart, had social status, liked detailed work, and had a ton of friends and acquaintances. His serious nature did lead to some awkwardness, such as bringing up the reasons women might sell their bodies when speaking to a young woman, but he had some ineffable quality that led those around him to only laugh and forgive him.
Simply put, he was made of charisma.
Without him, the collection of eccentrics that was the Golden cabal would have fallen apart before it got off the ground.
“Will this do, Annie?”
“If this were my theatre, I would want to place a crane on the ceiling.”
“Hee hee. We are still in the planning phase, you know?”
They were discussing the catacombs…which was a special room where only the VIP magicians would perform ceremonies.
However, they didn’t actually have to grab a shovel and dig out an underground space. “Catacombs” was only a name. They would be making it collapsible so it could even be transferred if they had to move locations.
Knowing this was the wold’s largest magic cabal’s ceremonial ground, one might picture some creepy stone ruins full of skeletons, like the Paris Catacombs, but instead the walls and floor were painted in primary colors and it was full of symbolic weapons made by attaching powerful magnets to the end of wooden sticks or coating clear glass with blue paint.
The light on the ceiling was electric.
They would use anything available to them. That was the way of things in an age before magic and science were split. Mina had graduated art school, so she gave form to the images in Mathers’s head, but they also had help from Annie and the Lady of the Masquerade Ball.
They created a ceremonial ground that used the logic of stage contraptions.
And this was no school play – those professional performers refused to cut any corners.
The Mathers couple’s home was in Paris, but they were visiting the London temple for this job. Annie couldn’t be more delighted at the chance to spend time with her old friend.
“I may have gotten a little carried away.”
“Oh? Mina, remembering your school days?”
“I made some daring alterations, so I hope the 1st temple in Germany won’t be mad.”
“It should be fine. There’s plenty of occult stories about high-tech things too, like cameras stealing your soul or absorbing your life energy, school anatomy models running around at night, or hearing strange voices on the telephone. And there are plenty of stories of ghosts appearing on the stage too.”
Not only that, but the Golden cabal weren’t the only ones to use a stage performance to boost a mystical ceremony. The Christian pipe organs and choirs wouldn’t have taken that form if someone hadn’t designed it for that purpose.
When a magician donned mythological garb and took the stage, they temporarily cast off the bonds of reality.
Here, they could become the disciples who discovered CRC’s preserved corpse.
“Mina, don’t you want a stage elevator? One of those things that lets an actor – bam! – shoot up from below the floor. Should I bring you the designs?”
“The landlord will cry if we modify the apartment that much.”
Lately, Arthur Edward Waite was the center of attention. In the name of testing out the accuracy of the tarot cards he was prototyping and improving, Edward Berridge, John William Brodie-Innes, and others would often gather around the table together. That Waite didn’t realize things were only running so smoothly because of Westcott’s assistance showed it would be some time before he caught up to the founder.
Waite was currently interpreting the card Mina had turned over. Westcott would respect his independence but provide a subtle hint if he ever ran into trouble.
“The obvious interpretation would be the lunar forces: dreams, fantasies, and the occult in general. The Hanged Man next to it refers to another plane of existence. In this case, perhaps the astral plane. And this card refers to a woman. Since it’s the High Priestess, probably one younger than yourself. Like a younger colleague or sister.”
“My.”
“But, madam, this Tower card worries me. It says to watch out for an apprentice. Destruction, disgrace…this may mean you will get into a fight later on. But the combination of another phase and a fight is an odd one.”
“Mina!!”
The door burst open and Mathers entered.
The idiot who stood out even among those eccentrics raised his voice.
“What is the meaning of this? I hate to say it, but you must be possessed by an evil spirit. How else do you explain this horrendous lack of red? I can’t bear to see it. The deplorable state of the eggs on this plate tells me the 5th sphere of Gevurah – that is the power of Mars – is weakening!!”
“Oh, dear, honey. I forgot you will only eat a fried egg if it has been cooked on both sides until the yolk is firm.”
“If you’re just going to complain, then make your own damn eeeeeeeggs!”
Why couldn’t that man just ask her to cook the eggs a little more? His dramatics gave Annie a headache.
“Mina, if you keep spoiling that unemployed loser, he’s only going to get worse.”
“But, Annie, nothing is more fun than looking after a husband who is deadly incapable of taking care of himself☆”
“You’ve taken the loving wife routine so far you’ve turned into a downward spirallllll!!!”
Mathers knew how to box and fence, he was fluent in both Latin and Hebrew, and he had mastered numerical codes. He was talented in just about every field, but he was nightmarishly lacking in common sense, cooperation, and the ability to earn money with a hard day’s work. Heaven had blessed him in one way while cursing him in more than one way, so with the exception of Mina and Westcott, he could only speak with people by sandwiching his words between arguments.
Anna Kingsford’s death had been a tragedy.
That expert was said to have been the only person capable of getting Mathers to obey her word and of silencing him with her fist.
If only she had passed on that secret before she died.
Recently, the Lady of the Masquerade Ball had invited a few members of the Golden cabal to form a smaller group of friends.
It was known as The Sphere.
Being the world’s largest magic cabal had its downsides. When enough people were gathered in a single large room, they tended to split into smaller groups.
In terms of the latest fad of psychology, this may have been the result of Thanatos, the mental drive to modify old traditions and organizations.
…And as dramatic as this might sound, this is a phenomenon commonly seen at pub tables.
One day, the great Mathers arrived at the Isis-Urania Temple (which reeked so bad of burnt lamp oil that they all might have died if not for the fireplace chimney).
What he said came out of nowhere.
“I am one of the chosen nobility meant to protect the common people.”
“You’re what???”
Sensible Annie’s (ice cold) retort did not lead him to correct himself.
The look in his eyes was concerning. Such a dark look.
His pupils were fully dilated.
I shouldn’t have reacted, realized Annie, regret plain on her face. It was the late 19th century. The ironclad rule of just ignoring troublesome people had yet to be invented.
Besides, she had noticed before that man was doing something off separate from the cabal.
“Really, I can’t believe it took me so long to realize I have noble Highlander blood flowing through my veins. Oh, sorry if I confused you all, but you can rest easy and henceforth refer to me as the Count of Glenstrae!! Yes, show me the honor I am due, commoners!!!”
Nobility? What was this unemployed loser talking about???
…Perhaps his mind hadn’t been able to bear spending such a long time without a job.
But if so, why didn’t he just get a job?
Annie Horniman chose to discuss it with someone who would understand. She tugged on the woman’s clothing.
“Mina, excuse me, Mina, Mina. Um, I believe your husband is mentally worn out, so it would probably be a good idea to send him to some quiet old castle or retreat up in the mountains. Preferably forever.”
“Hee hee. Oh, my. Honey, you have such an active imagination. Look, your dreams and fantasies are dripping out. Do you even need your wife to wipe your mouth off for you, you spoiled thing?”
“Not even this breaks her loving wife routine? But if this gets out, it’ll do some real social damage!”
Annie’s family had made a fortune in the tea trade and she too had a talent for making money. Enough that she would go on to build a large theatre.
So she was the one funding the Mina couple’s lifestyle. Not for unemployed Mathers, but to support her adorable Mina! But if that unemployed loser started ranting about being royalty or nobility in public, it could damage Mina’s reputation, not to mention Annie’s for supporting them!!
Tarot cards had been around for a very long time. The names and the number of cards varied. Arthur Edward Waite must have been dissatisfied with the accuracy of his prototype version with altered numbers and symbols because he toyed with a few of the cards while sipping on a glass of whisky.
“The thing is, Westcott.”
“Hm?”
“I really like you.”
That alone was enough to know what kind of magician he was.
Overall, there were two lines of thinking within the Golden cabal.
But this wasn’t anything as cool as an inner circle and outer circle or a first legion and second legion.
Quite the opposite.
One group wanted to master magic and change the world. The other saw magic as an attractive topic to inspire enjoyable conversation within the group,.
As the world’s largest, the Golden cabal was not lacking in members. Some like Coroner Westcott and Doctor Berridge had official authority and social status. Some like Annie and the Lady of the Masquerade Ball were part of the gaudy world of the performance arts. They also had a few world-famous poets and scriptwriters. Even Mina Mathers was the daughter of the Bergson family (although the gentle wife was unaware of the privilege this brought her). Whatever industry one might be working in, involving oneself in a shared secret wasn’t a bad way to build up connections.
From that worldly viewpoint, Mathers was an exceptionally unattractive person to hold a central position in the cabal.
For him, magic was everything.
Calling him focused or dedicated sounded nice, but that magical genius had next to no official titles. He had no money and no social standing and his frequent bizarre behavior only served to cause a scene. But he wasn’t some mystical person who got by without working. Technically speaking, he did work. Because Annie would find open positions for him. But that never lasted long. He would be unemployed again in no time. And now he was claiming to be a descendant of Scottish nobility.
Westcott’s letters were actually of dubious validity, yet not a single person in the cabal believed Mathers’s bloodline delusions. Because nothing he said could change that he had been born to a middle class London office worker.
His wife Mina kindly went along with it, but there was no way of knowing what she actually thought. Knowing her, she might actually believe him. Then again, she was the daughter of the Bergson family who had thrown out that position by marrying Mathers, so she may not have cared at all about the class system of Queen Victoria’s British Empire.
“I can’t divorce myself from public life to pursue magic to the extent Count Glenstrae has. And I can’t pursue my dreams to the extent his wife does.”
“You shouldn’t compare yourself to them. Not everyone can live that kind of life. They are unusual even for the cabal.”
“It’s the same with these cards. I talk about using them to package or categorize the Sephiroth, but fortune telling is really all about utilitarian benefit, isn’t it? Pence, shillings, pounds… I am nothing more than a silly man who can’t stop thinking about numbers. No matter how hard I try, I doubt I can ever live as a magician like you.”
“Do you feel bad for living a comfortable life?”
“There is a 7=4 who insists any magician who focuses on worldly money is second-rate.”
“That’s just sour grapes over being unemployed.”
Only another 7=4 would openly talk about Mathers that way. And as a skilled magician who also had real social standing, Westcott was a different sort of monster.
Arthur Edward Waite shrank down like he wanted to disappear.
“I’m ashamed of it, but I just can’t stop making money. Once these cards are complete, they will make me a fortune. I am certain they will continue to be produced and sold long after I am dead. They will continue turning a profit until people no longer fear their vague fortunes and futures.”
He was approaching an invention that, in a way, was more incredible than some magic spell, but that didn’t mean he was proud of it.
This hinted at the real meaning behind what he had said.
Westcott and Mathers.
Two of the three founders.
“That’s why I like that the cabal is led by someone who can compromise with the real world.”
“No, no drinking.”
Mathers (who was a drinker but had no money) was despondent.
But Westcott did not back down.
“You can get drunk after we gather our thoughts on the Secret Chiefs. I have discovered and deciphered all of the original code books. You are supposed to create various ceremonies based on them that anyone can read. Wasn’t that the plan?”
The Secret Chiefs were mysterious beings said to grant permission to establish a magic cabal, and everyone had their own ideas about them. Westcott said one could borrow their power by asking a priestess in distant Germany. Mathers said they were incorporeal beings but boasted he could directly contact them. Some magicians even said they were ordinary people who walked on two legs and drank coffee in the city.
Old gentlemanly Westcott sighed.
“If using your head is so displeasing to you, then how about you visit remote Tibet and search for the Secret Chiefs in the physical world? Do that and I will buy you as much Scotch as you can drink.”
“Sh, shh!!” shushed Doctor Berridge, hastily raising his left index finger to his lips.
Only Westcott, who was on the same level as Mathers, could make jokes like that in the Golden cabal. In this age, magicians believed they would receive unfathomable wisdom and power if they made the long journey to Tibet, but Mathers loathed the way some people would throw out study and logic in order to rely on the “Mysterious East”.
“I say we forget about some single concept like the Secret Chiefs and instead study means of reaching and toying with the higher plane as a whole.”
“Either way, this isn’t a subject you can discuss over drinks. Besides, a drink is a reward for someone who has completed a day’s work. Now, Mathers, I will use your least favorite phrase in the entire world: get to work.”
Doctor Berridge stared at Westcott, plainly wanting to say something.
The priestess named Anna Sprengel was a mysterious figure who only ever appeared in Westcott’s letters. No one had ever actually seen her.
More than a friend of a friend, she was like that friend of a friend’s teacher.
Did that Secret Chief really exist?
This magician loved late-night walks.
Mathers was a troublesome genius who never went out and instead sponged off of his students when out of drinks and cheese, but there was one place even he would take the time to walk to: the British Museum. The many texts stored there were the one thing in the world that had complete power over him. As one of the founders, it perhaps went without saying he was a bookworm through and through. He only visited irregularly, but since he had slipped into the shadows of London, he wanted to read everything he could.
(Grimoires borrowing that king’s name have been more common of late. Now, it would do the world a great service if I could search out the oldest records I can find, sum up their main points, and create a simple checklist showing whether or not they are connected to that king.)
“The ability to gather all those texts into a single whole would be a truly great invention. Hm, but that would eliminate the fun of navigating the maze of bookcases.”
Mathers laughed as he strolled through the London night. He had apparently forgotten Annie’s warning that it was his meaningless evil laughter that gathered the patrolling authorities’ attention. Not that he had been listening to her in the first place.
It was late at night. The museum was no longer accepting ordinary visitors.
But such a truly skilled magician did not think he had to enter through the front door. Not when knowledge was calling his name. As a count, it was only polite to answer its invitation and accept its hospitality.
Mathers felt pain after taking three more steps along the dark street.
From a physical attack.
It felt like a hammer blow.
The heavy impact passed through his thick cloak and clothing to reach his right shoulder.
(It’s broken.)
He noticed only after he was hit.
Of course, Mathers wouldn’t normally make such a mistake. He would have instantly detected the assailant’s intent to attack and sent one of the seven demon lords after them.
“Hm.”
(That means this person knows my methods and found a loophole.)
Magicians were a type of technician Taking out his dominant arm first was a decent decision.
Mathers took a few more steps as if nothing had happened and then turned around.
If someone was there, this would have established a type of resonance that made them turn around too, but it didn’t work.
The dark street was deserted.
He had focused on the wrong place.
Aware of that, Mathers chuckled self-deprecatingly.
“So not even the British Empire is safe? If this attack had happened in broad daylight, I may have ended up in the papers as the victim of another theatrical crime.”
It was that era too.
It had likely made some good sample material for the latest fad of psychology. Some bored ripper had caused a bit of a stir, and that had been enough to distort the world. Crimes were growing and evolving to make the current level of excitement a thing of the past.
Mathers gave a snort of laughter.
Was this some magic being used to that end? It seemed familiar and then Mathers recognized it as an evocation spell he himself had expanded upon based on a certain code book.
“Being the biggest in the world really does have its downsides. There are far too many possible traitors.”
The Isis-Urania Temple was a grandiose name, but it was really just an apartment rented by the cabal. With the exception of the ceremonial ground, the only light came from an oil lamp. And there were shadows in the corners.
She had nothing solid to go off of.
But Mina Mathers’s eyes dropped to her ring as she spoke under her breath.
She was a top-rate magician whose greatest weapon was art and she had created several texts on various forms of visions and meditation as reference material for the cabal.
“Honey…no, it can’t be…”
The world was sliced apart by the shadows of the night, but Mathers’s confidence remained intact.
“Did you learn this from common society? Theatrical really is the best way of describing it. The way these crimes stimulate the people’s baser emotions in such a short period of time shows they were designed by someone who understands the basics of theatre.”
Didn’t one member of the Golden cabal hope to build a theatre? And wasn’t she the woman who wanted to tear apart Mathers and Mina’s relationship?
But Mathers wasn’t dense enough to end his search for the culprit there.
In fact, unlike a common play, the magician had no need to search for the culprit at all. Curses would return to their caster. Or could be set up to do so. If he defeated and eliminated this, it would also harm the magician responsible.
If he had some spare time, he could always search out the foolish traitor who would be writhing in pain from their own curse, but Mathers wasn’t that cruel. The worm could die in the gap between the filthy wall and wooden box where they were hiding.
Summoning and evocation might sound impressive (which was on purpose since Mathers and the other Golden magicians had given them those names for that exact reason), but there was no need to construct an entire angel or demon in order to produce deadly force. That would be a lot of wasted effort and giving it a head – and thus the ability to think – created the threat of revolt.
Sealing Telesma in a talisman or weapon was sufficient for most magic and it technically didn’t even require existing matter.
“Still, this is a makeshift version. I believe Waite is still trying to fine-tune it.”
Mathers only whispered.
Something floated in the air.
A single card. It had been there from the beginning. But in the dark night with only sporadic streetlights, an object the size of a leaf would go unnoticed floating in the breeze.
It was a tarot card from the Major Arcana: the Magician. It meant cleverness, an enemy trap, and willpower. It was the chance to begin something and the beginning of change.
(I see.)
That told him the purpose behind this curse.
And as soon as he accurately interpreted it, a line of light appeared on the ground directly below the floating card. The line bent in accordance with some kind of rules, drawing out a sharp, angular star on the ground. It was around 2m across. The eight-pointed star was drawn out in a single continuous stroke. Instead of specializing in a specific element, this symbol was a combination of all elements.
It was not being created anew.
This meaning had been included in the card from the start. You could say Mathers himself had given it a temporary external appearance with the power of his imagination. He was, after all, one of the cabal founders with a 7=4 grade. If he wanted, he could view the floating card as a heart, drape a thick cloak around it, and turn it into “false person” with a 3D silhouette…but after thinking it through that far, the obsessive man sighed. He consciously lessened his focus. He did not need to thoroughly analyze all the details here. Knowing the meaning and coordinates was enough.
The octagram symbolized the power of all of the elements. If intentionally used incorrectly, it could create a powerful blow to anything composed of the four elements formed from the four qualities.
That made this a colossal spring that could move freely along the ground. It would approach its target and, once their coordinates coincided, reject them, launching them straight up. There was no real altitude limit. If you only wanted to kill someone, you simply had to launch them from the planet. Mathers’s right shoulder had been crushed because the star had passed right next to his foot and only the arm sticking out past his leg had been hit.
“Is that all you have?” Mathers was exasperated. “How careless. You were reliant on the element of surprise and your initial attack failed to kill me, but you aren’t erasing all evidence and preventing me from sending it back at you? Did you not even consider the possibility of a counterattack?”
Did they refuse to listen, or did they lack the brains to understand? He doubted it.
Not if this was being controlled remotely.
The octagram zigzagged along the ground, approaching him. With speed surpassing a coal-powered automobile. As if it were dragged along or guided by the floating Magician card.
Annie Horniman’s grimace wasn’t just due to the burnt oil stench of the lamp on the table.
It wasn’t as if she hadn’t considered the possibility. She had vaguely realized this might happen.
But not because she had used the tarot cards Waite was still so seriously working at readjusting the numbers and symbols for. No divination was necessary for anyone with ordinary sensibilities to sense interpersonal trouble brewing.
The problem was how few of the eccentrics in the magic cabal were capable of reading the room like that. They were all the overly intellectual type who needed to gaze into a crystal ball or flip over some cards to figure out something so obvious. So they wouldn’t notice someone’s anger until it exploded in their face.
Of course, Annie didn’t particularly care what kind of disaster befell Mathers.
If a coal-powered automobile hit him on the side of the street, knocking him into the Thames where fish swarmed around to consume his flesh, that was fine by her. Her arms would be open to comfort the newly-widowed Mina.
But…
“…”
Someone stood in a corner of the room.
Mina Mathers. But her eyes weren’t on Annie. She was staring at her ring, her thoughts only on her husband who had left and still hadn’t returned. She looked somehow smaller than usual.
(Well, if that’s how it is.)
Annie sighed softly and hefted something over her shoulders. She felt their weight bearing down on her. As much as she didn’t like it, she made her way to the Isis-Urania Temple’s exit.
After solving a numerical puzzle on the table, Westcott raised his head and gave her a puzzled look.
“Oh? Annie, is that your Jachin and Boaz? Where are you taking them?”
“To go kick someone’s ass☆”
“Evocation.”
It changed.
The people, the air, the presence, the world.
All it took was that word from Mathers.
For an opponent like this, he didn’t even need to pull out the four symbolic weapons his wife had made.
The evocation and the exorcism were two parts of a single technique.
All things that could be summoned by humans could be swiftly driven out by humans. Just like the person who set a train in motion needed to be able to stop the train too.
“I call on one of the seven deadly sins. On one who was once viewed as an even greater demon lord than Satan and Lucifer. On a god who has not lost his great power even after his true name was corrupted.”
This genius was not led astray by the impressive-sounding seven deadly sins.
He was not satisfied with just Beelzebub.
That was why he searched out so many undeciphered texts in the British Library and translated the Hebrew into Latin and the Latin into English so modern people could read them. That was why he reproduced, resurrected, and made use of ancient gods from an age before a certain holy man was hung on the cross. That was why he dug back up the powers that were buried long ago for the convenience of those in charge.
Even if this occasionally made him a target for the Anglican Church’s assassins.
The star which drew out eight sharp points with a single stroke veered off of its shortest attack route. It stopped right in front of Mathers and moved erratically to the sides. It was clearly being controlled by someone rather than being a simple guided weapon.
It seemed to be squirming. Or taking frozen evasive action.
But Mathers had finished.
“Come forth, Baal Zebul.”
It only took a single strike.
Unable to even touch Mathers, the collection of lines pasted to the ground were twisted and burned through while the floating card was forcefully flipped over before its ashes scattered in the wind.
It was in that moment that a certain genius forcibly overturned his deadly fate.
“Oh.”
A figure doubled over.
She was at the former site of one of the Thames’s innumerable wharves.
An altar, flags to the west and east, tablets of different metals, a few seats for each role… So much time had been spent decorating the place to make the temple look like a proper temple, but now it was all in a miserable state. No, that wasn’t quite accurate. A great power had burst from within or sliced through it all. Everything used for the curse was destroyed equally.
She felt intense pain and heat in her right shoulder.
She couldn’t claim ignorance there since she had sent the curse.
“Oh, ohh.”
(It’s…broken.)
This wasn’t like a spell that ended once it was launched from your palm.
A doll.
A dagger.
This was part of why Mathers had concluded he need not search for the culprit.
She had created her game piece by summoning a large quantity of Telesma and having it carry her mental image through the card. That image had been her deadly desire and it could be seen as part of her being. Controlling the monster with her own thoughts gave the attack much greater odds of success, but sending in a deadly monster still linked to her also created the risk of this happening.
Just like blocking off the long steam pipe providing power to a large factory would apply pressure to the central boiler and eventually cause it to burst.
An attack could travel back to her.
“Ohhhhh- gbh.”
Doctor Berridge and Coroner Westcott had once argued over Scotch that the inside of the body could not actually feel pain, but that was a lie. How else could she explain this excruciating pain that felt like having her entire body twisted apart?
A cold sweat formed on her brow.
She focused all her willpower on slowing her breathing and attempting to resume refining her life force into magic power, but she struggled to control her body.
Her thick shoulder bone had been broken. Far too easily.
“Gevurah, the fifth sephirah, the element of fire. That is, the 6=5 robe of the Egyptian role. Accept me as I free myself from the bonds of my physical body and depart. Purify the calamities and flaws of my soul with the flame spoken of in the records of the ancient gods. I will be reborn here, stripping off all my old wounds and pai-”
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”
The figure shook.
Annie Horniman spoke casually to her.
“I get wanting to cast off your body and escape the pain and fear after having the recoiled curse break your shoulder, but astral projection is a form of mental manipulation used to surpass the limits of your surface consciousness. Using it too often can get you absorbed by your own subconscious, unable to return. The Sphere you’ve been secretly putting together knows how to do all the calculations, but you should really stop there.”
“Where did I give myself away?”
“Nowhere really. You just seem like the type who would like remote attacks. Taphthartharath, was it? I remember your plan to summon that symbol of Mercury. Oh, sorry. ‘Envoke’, right? I still don’t quite grasp that new definition Mathers and the others came up with one day out of the blue. Anyway, you were sitting around the table with a few of your apprentices planning a ceremony to call on that thing. Not that I think you can manifest the real deal.”
This had been a theatrical crime.
The threat had incorporated the logic of a play, but Annie Horniman wasn’t the only one with a connection to that industry.
Wasn’t there another?
The Lady of the Masquerade Ball. That magician was in fact a famous actress.
She had clearly been on edge back at the Isis-Urania Temple. She hadn’t participated in the conversation when Mathers caused a scene or when everyone was testing Waite’s prototype tarot. Not once. The only person she had openly spoken to was Westcott, whose charisma made him a contact point for any number of areas.
“It’s just no fun…”
At this point, she didn’t bother making excuses.
Had she given up on all mental activity?
The masked woman puffed on the long, skinny pipe that passed right through her smooth mask and breathed out a toxically sweet cloud of smoke.
“So many rules. So many restrictions. Creating the framework of a cabal may have been a necessary part of getting our secret club started, but that stage is over. The promises made to get it started only weigh us down now. I want to enjoy magic more lazily. I want to immerse myself in it, intoxicate myself with it, and forget all about real life.”
“We call ourselves the world’s largest magic cabal and now we’re falling to internal strife? It’s so human I want to laugh.”
“Oh? Don’t you also want that arrogant and dogmatic Mathers to die? Although in your case it has nothing to do with his influence over the cabal.”
“Well, yes. I would have killed that freak ages ago if that were an option.”
But she hadn’t. She hated his guts for selfishly throwing her life off track and for marrying Mina. Killing him just the once didn’t seem sufficient in her opinion. And yet.
Her reason couldn’t have been simpler.
A pair of heavy objects crashed noisily to the ground.
A white pillar and a black pillar.
Annie Horniman grinned belligerently with one of the long clubs in each hand.
They were from the same cabal.
She wouldn’t kill the woman, but she would rough her up a bit.
Until that beautiful throat and tongue sang that she would rather die.
“This is what happens when you even slightly harm the life my Mina chose for yourself, okay?”
