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 Posted: Thu May 29, 2008 1:00 am
After the camping trip (which had been a rousing success, except for the part where Irelia and Jace had accidentally loosed an unholy murderous ***** spirit who would probably kill anyone who wandered into the grounds of the Winchester Asylum for the Insane), one thing moved at the forefront of Jace and Irelia's minds: testing out her power, trying to make it work for them, rather than working randomly at the moments when they didn't really want it to work.
This experiment somehow found them in Fakir's, familiar to Irelia but not to Jace, wandering around the backs of the stacks with the smell of old and decaying books all around them and dim op-shop lighting. For her part, Jacoba was used to the smell of books: you got it enough in her mother's study, for one thing, the smell of really old books, so it didn't piss her off too much. Well. It reminded her of M.B., and that always made her a little bit peeved.
"So where do we start," she said, "I still say we should've gotten you to try and raise a frickin' zombie."
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Posted: Thu May 29, 2008 1:39 am
Irelia had enjoyed the camping trip immensely, especially when her and Jace raced D.D. and Wisp in canoes (they won, and managed to tip everyone in to the water; D.D. was not impressed). They were all wearing lifejackets, so it wasn't that big of a deal.
Now that they were back from the trip, Irelia expected her usual dreary weekly activities of going to school and biking around, running in to practically no one. But Jace had cornered her after school and decided that experimenting with ungodly powers was the ticket to fun-land. Irelia was a bit wary of trying it again, last time almost killed the two of them, and probably many hobos had met their demise already. The needed to kill that thing, dead, and the only way they were going to be able to was if they were stronger.
Fakir's. The store was so old, and seemed to be full of junk that was also worth probably a small country. Probably a good place to start for their hunt for something for Irelia to summon or whatever.
Irelia rolled her eyes at Jace. Of course she wanted to summon things that they'd have to fight when they decided that human flesh was a tasty treat.
"Well, those books look old over there? Maybe we can find something."
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Posted: Thu May 29, 2008 1:44 am
"Yeah, like, book herpes," said Jace, but she relented and marched over into what she felt was the heart of the book labyrinth. The shelves were all dull and dark and old and the shop was unnaturally quiet; the sound was sort of muffled, boxing in their voices, and she went and she touched all the covers of the books until she came back with about five that looked as though they had come straight from 1500. These she gleefully sat down with and started opening willy-nilly.
"What the hell," she said of the first one, "cook book. 'The steak muft sizzle. It muft.' Whatever. Next. Come on, use your oogie boogies to tell which is which."
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Posted: Thu May 29, 2008 2:58 am
Irelia grinned at Jace's reading material, and dragged her fingers along the spines of the books that Jace had pulled out. Shaking her head at each of them, Irelia moved down the set of shelves until it was getting rather shadowy. A colony of spiders had taken refuge in the little used spot, and Irelia hastily brushed the cobwebs away.
"Hey Jace, look at these," Irelia said, waving Jace over. The spines were all covered with spidery writing, and weird glyphs, definitely not normal reading material for 12 year olds. Irelia had muted out the voices of the books as best she could, worried that even touching these well-worn spines could cause her to have another attack of the crazies.
All of the books sounded promising, but Irelia didn't know which one to pick. And what exactly they would do with whatever she conjured up.
"You pick Jace; I don't want to be responsible for everything, and they all feel the same. Kinda creepy, but powerful."
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Posted: Thu May 29, 2008 12:44 pm
"Cool," said Jace. Evil powerful spider-eaten books. Excellent. She pulled one randomly out of the haphazard stack; one with a cover that might have been blue once but had long turned a dull, uninviting grey, brushing the dust off it. It actually looked mildly malevolent.
"Okay," she said, tangerine eyes narrowed, holding it out. "I'd like one Rel ******** power sunny side up."
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Posted: Thu May 29, 2008 10:13 pm
"Wait wait wait," Irelia waved her hands and backed away from the book (and Jace's hellish expression), "Don't you think we should like, have a plan? Like, what happens if I unleash a hellish beast again? Are we just going to run away again?"
Irelia didn't like stepping in to a situation that might go horribly, horribly wrong without at least an escape plan.
Irelia peered at the book that Jace was holding, careful not to touch it. It almost felt ready to take a bite out of her face, and Irelia shivered.
"I dunno Jace. My vote's still with a fuzzy bunny or like, one of your sister's love letters to that demon kid."
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Posted: Thu May 29, 2008 10:19 pm
"Oh gross," said her best friend, tossing back her mane of red spikes again. "We'll summon the ghost of Bad Spelling. Look, I can handle it. See what I brought this time?" Out from underneath her shirt, Jace revealed a crucifix of three different kinds and some rock salt. "We're bulletproof, seriously."
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Posted: Thu May 29, 2008 10:27 pm
"Oh alright," Irelia grumbled and sat down on the dusty ground. Irelia dug around in her bag and pulled out her book, the dark metal gleaming menacingly. Quieting her beating heart, Irelia swallowed uneasily, and looked up at Jace. Jace seemed to be grinning a little too much for something that could possibly kill them, but Irelia knew that was just Jace. Ready and willing to kick butt and take names.
Irelia held out her hands for the book Jace held.
"Alright, lets see if this works," Irelia said.
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Posted: Thu May 29, 2008 10:38 pm
The necklaces jangled a little as Jace leant over, face alight in curiosity, scanning the page in case anything leapt out at her for setting off Irelia in particular. She never seemed to worry except when the jaws of death were closing around them; much too cocksure, bright, a little nuts. Oh well.
"Let's rock'n'roll," she said.
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Posted: Thu May 29, 2008 11:03 pm
Irelia lowered her defenses slowly, ready to pull them back up if something bothered her, but the book seemed to be normal enough. Taking it in to her hands, she quickly scanned the pages.
"Its... a diary," Irelia told jace, flipping the pages as she sped through the daily life of what appeared to be a young woman.
There was really nothing that was popping out to Irelia, until she came to one entry. May 30th. The same day it was here and now. Irelia knew that this was the entry that she was going to latch on to and started reading it aloud to Jace.
"May 30th-
Today started off simply enough. I was called to the house of the men who were in charge of my well-being, friends of my father's. They were a bit odd, slightly eccentric and talked with a strong accent, hailing from the German homeland. They rarely called me to see them, choosing instead to write me long, flowery letters that simply told me of their exploits and never asked me anything. But I digress-
Irelia stopped for a moment, and looked up at Jace with a grin.
"At least I don't think she's going to kill us if we call her."
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Posted: Thu May 29, 2008 11:53 pm
"Probably because she's, like, dead," said Jace, "that's a tipoff."
Her friend wasn't bad at reading out loud; at least she didn't make the entire thing sound like a snoozefest, lulling her into a gentle sleep to be covered by all the dusty mouldering books. "Come on, read more," she said. "'Then I made out with them. It was hot.' Whatev."
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Posted: Sat May 31, 2008 1:38 am
"I don't think it gets THAT interesting, but I'll continue," Irelia said, smiling briefly.
"-they were kind to me, and it is foolish for me to say anything ill about them. our meeting was short and abrupt, asking me pointed questions and constantly offering me tea, though I told them I wasn't thirsty. Finally, I gave in, and drank their blasted tea, and the next thing I knew, they had roused me and shuffled me out the door, ignoring my pleading. I did not know what transpired between 4 in the afternoon and 6 in the evening."
Irelia stopped reading and mutely ran her fingers over the words.
"I don't get it, I thought I felt something here, pretty close to what i felt last time. But nothing is happening."
Irelia traced her fingers over a patch of the blank page, and suddenly, her eyes went blank. Irelia was tracing an odd symbol on the page, one that she would have recognized from the last encounter. It looked like a key.
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Posted: Sat May 31, 2008 1:42 am
The expression settling over her face was much the same as the one that had started next to the bonfire at their camping holiday; Jace raised her brown fingers and clicked, just in case she was starting to zone out, eyes hungry for the mystery that was happening to her best friend. It wasn't like the book they'd been reading had had anything at all to do with anything. What was going on?
"You still on the planet, Rel?"
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Posted: Sun Jun 01, 2008 2:25 pm
Irelia didn't answer, and instead bit her finger, drawing blood. Why she wrote it in blood was anybody's guess, but Irelia knew that she had to do it this way. Irelia was far more aware of what she was doing this time, but still kinda felt like she was on autopilot. Sketching the large ornate key in blood, Irelia felt the book... tremble. Finishing the key, her book started to glow, and the bloody key seeped in to the page of the book.
"Well, at least the glow is comforting," Irelia said, and stood up to stand by Jace, her book in her hand, the diary on the ground. Nothing seemed to be happening other than that, and Irelia was about to close the book when there was a distinct grating sound.
The book case in front of them was moving.
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Posted: Sun Jun 01, 2008 3:22 pm
"Oh, what the hell," her best friend was saying, one arm thrown out in front of Irelia in case the bookcase decided to attack them. It was rumbling slightly, a quiet grating sound in their ears as the bookcase slid. "What the s**t, for real."
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