The Hand We're Dealt - Chapter 9

Stereotypes are judgmental shorthand for social situations the mind uses to come to conclusions quickly, saving effort for more important things.

“Lookit the widdle kid who likes to talk out his arse.”

But, the thing about stereotypes? They almost always had some basis in reality in order to exist in the first place.

“Aww, what's the matter, mixed-breed? You gonna' cry?”

For an example as to the validity of stereotypes, take my current situation. I'd been cornered by three older boys on my way to do an errand for the Professor. They were somewhat notorious around the campus and I usually avoided them as discreetly as possible. If their type saw you turn and run, they'd react like sharks to blood in the water. Still, on this occasion I'd been unlucky enough to stumble on them as they lounged about in the halls, very obviously bored enough to seize upon the first opportunity for amusement.

“Maybe we should do van Beek a favor and get rid of the chit? Not like his parents wanted him.”

At that point, I decided I'd had enough.

Again, stereotypes had their basis in reality. As cliché as it might be, a shot against whoever my parents were was more of a sore point than I thought it would be. My first instinct was, of course, violence, but I reigned that in tightly. Although I felt pretty sure that the Professor wouldn't care about the bodies themselves once the situation had been explained to him, I'd be punished for taking up the man's time and energy.

I settled on an alternative solution.

It helped that the last of the witnesses had turned the next corner, not wanting to get involved with the three older teenagers that were looming over me, deciding that a nine year old child was a valid target for some entertainment. I suppose I looked a bit tall for my age, but not substantially old enough that it should actually matter, especially given they each had at least fifty pounds on me.

Magical energy surged into my eyes as I forced them as wide as I could, lacing the words coming from me with yet more magic. “You believe bothering me to be beneath you, much as you do to all other people of lower social or financial means. Abusing the weak isn't fun anymore. You have better things to do.”

I cut the streams of power, steadying myself against the wall as the boys blinked owlishly at me for a long moment.

Then the leader shook his head, clearing the artificially-induced cobwebs from it and snorting. “Let's go, guys. I've got to get to class. We've wasted enough time on this kid.”

His lackeys muttered their assent and the three turned to walk away as one.

I sighed, finding my footing again as I recovered from the momentary exertion.

“Holy Shit.”

I briefly closed my eyes, rubbing at them tiredly as I turned towards the familiar voice. Dark hair and dark eyes, a slightly-ruffled suit in good condition. Still, the fact that he was staring at me with black surprise, bordering on shock, told me all I needed to know. For a moment, I considered wiping his mind, but relented instead. It wasn't as if van Beek didn't have anyone in his circle that knew about the moonlit world, and... I trusted him, if only somewhat. In the end, he was the closest thing I had to a real friend here.

“Good morning Hector,” I sighed.

“Ah... yeah, morning,” Hector stated blankly.

We stared at each other in silence for a long moment.

“If that's all, I need to attend to the Professor's errands,” I stated, turning and making to leave.

“Damn, no – wait!” Hector cried, stumbling into a quick run to catch up to me and lowering his voice as he looked around furtively. “Wait-wait... what was that?”

“Something I'd really rather you hadn't seen,” I stated with a grumble.

Hector chewed on his words quietly for a moment, keeping apace with my own steps as he visibly hesitated before trying again in an undertone. “So... it's true then, old Professor van Beek is a wizard, isn't he?”

“A sorcerer,” I corrected with another sigh, mentally calculating that I was going to be doing quite a lot of sighing today. Much more than I'd accounted for, certainly. “Do I need to explain that you can't tell anyone about this? Or do you understand on your own?”

The older boy gave me a slightly sour look, no doubt feeling he was being talked down to. Which he was. Hector huffed and nodded. “Fine, fine... no one takes the ruddy rumor seriously anyway, it's just school gossip. Even if I swore up and down it was true, they'd just take me for a nutter.”

“You're wiser than most people who figure things out,” I noted to take the sting out of my earlier comment. “If you have any questions, you can ask Mister Simons. He's not a practitioner, but he knows enough to stay out of things. I imagine he'll have some useful advice to impart.”

“Why would I ask him when I could just ask you instead?” Hector pointed out, looking at me curiously.

“Because I have neither the time nor the energy to entertain your curiosity on this subject?” I parried, raising an eyebrow at him.

“I'll help you with your chores,” Hector offered. “I can be absent one day from classes and no one will miss me. My grades can stand it and I'll beg off with the excuse of a bad meal that didn't sit right.”

I sighed explosively, adding yet another to the tally. “I want five of those little candies your mother sends you.”

Hector grinned, giving a small leap and whoop of glee and I rolled my eyes at the older boy.

“You are so very lucky I consider you my friend,” I stated with a shake of my head and a fond – if exasperated – smile definitely absent from my face.

“Aw... c'mon Henry, don't be like that. I was just about to step in front of Tom and his lot for you before you pulled your hocus pocus,” Hector stated, wiggling his fingers.

“Thank you for that, though it probably would have hurt more than helped,” I stated with a frown.

“Oh? How so?”

“Having someone near their age would give them permission to be rougher with both of us. They wouldn't consider it, really, just automatically move towards physical force once you entered the picture. That's usually how it goes, anyway,” I explained with a shake of my head.

Hector looked me over and frowned. “I'll keep that in mind. I suppose it isn't like you can't take care of yourself.”

I hid a grimace and decided it was worth it to moderate my earlier statement, at least a little. It was better he think I was grateful and frustrated rather than ungrateful and too proud to accept help. “Thank you, though. No one else would have even bothered.”

The dark-haired boy gave me a smile in return, then clapped his hands as we made our way outside and across a large field. “So... magic.”

I rolled my eyes at the conspiratorial undertone he adopted. “Speak normally. Whispering like that carries further than normal tones.”

Hector gave me a faux-scathing look that had traces of real annoyance hidden within it. “You hate fun, don't you Henry?”

“Remember who my mentor is and ask me that again,” I challenged him blandly as we made our way towards the wood-line.

Hector opened his mouth to argue, closed it, and shook his head. “Nevermind. Magic is real.”

It wasn't a question, but he wanted confirmation – affirmation – anyway. “Yes.”

He took a deep breath, then sighed it out. “Okay. So, witches and wizards and-and... like, did Old Dutch make you sign the devil's book?”

I sighed, more deeply and tiredly than anytime before. “That's a myth. The vast majority of human magic-users, to my admittedly limited experience on the subject, have very little or nothing at all to do with the devils or the Satans.”

“Satans?” Hector squawked, obviously noting the plural and looking around us in a paranoid fashion. “There's more than one of them?!”

“There are four of them. One is in charge of internal affairs, one is in charge of external affairs, one is in charge of research, and the last is in charge of military matters,” I explained patiently. “There was a civil war in the underworld a few centuries ago and instead of the positions being held by family lines, they were taken over by the 'New Satan' faction of devils who, largely, favor peaceful coexistence with the Grigori, – the fallen angel faction – and the forces of the God of Abraham.”

As was my intent, I could almost see the smoke coming out of Hector's ears as he stumbled along behind me silently attempting to reconcile the worldview I'd just taken a sledgehammer to. In the meantime, I removed a slip of paper and started looking over it to ensure I properly remembered the details of the wild herbal ingredients van Beek wanted me to pick up.

I had a nearly-supernatural memory, so I probably wasn't going to need the list, but it was better safe than sorry.

Perking up as I looked around for the first batch, I removed a folded leather bag from my pocket and snapped it open before reaching down with a small pocket knife to cut the first set.

“Okay, so heaven and hell are things and-” Hector began, before I thrust the bag at him.

“Hold that open for me,” I ordered him, snorting at his somewhat perturbed look. “You did say you were going to help me, didn't you?”

“Alright, alright... but, really... heaven and hell are... well, real?” Hector asked, his expression turning contemplative. “I'm going to have to start paying more attention in the pews.”

I cut another herb and then took a closer look at a patch of mushrooms. “Heaven is real, but hell... well, it's not what you think it is, as far as I know.”

“Gonna have to explain that one, Henry. You just said-” Hector began and I shook my head.

“I just said the underworld is real. Not the same thing. Magic-users basically warp the world around us with math, language, and raw concepts. So we're very particular about specifics, such as with word choice. Mixing up places like 'hell' and 'the underworld' is a blatant tell that you're either a complete amateur or have no magical training or knowledge.” I scowled at him. “Don't make that face at me, it's just how it is.”

“Sounds like you all have a stick up your ass,” Hector grunted.

“We're effectively all some brand of academics, so that checks out,” I replied dryly.

Hector snorted, hunching over as he fought against a sudden bout of laughter. “Ha! That's a good one, Henry. That's... just amazing, really. Heh.”

I grunted with a nod, then went back to picking out mushrooms. These weren't on the Professor's list, but they'd make something good to mix in the stew tonight.

“So if hell and this underworld place aren't the same... what's the difference?” Hector asked, holding the bag open as I dropped more plants into it.

I hummed thoughtfully. “The underworld is... think of it like our world's shadow. It's still a physical place, filled with physical beings, just... without any humans. It's the last refuge for a lot of the magical species that we've pushed out of the world and have become very rare here on Earth. Cerberus, Nemean Lions, those sorts of creatures. Instead of humans, though, the world is populated exclusively by devils and frozen in eternal night.”

Hector shivered slightly. “You almost sound like you want to go there.”

“If it weren't for the devils, maybe,” I lied, standing and slapping my hands against my pants legs. “There would be a lot of interesting research opportunities at the very least.”

“If you say so, kid,” the older boy shook his head. “So, what about hell?”

“Hell, as near as I can tell, is an abstract realm outside of reality. It's... not really all fire and brimstone like the bible would have you believe. Or, well... there's not much of that in the actual bible, but a lot of preachers and pastors don't let that stop them,” I muttered, shaking my head as I walked towards the next area on my mental list.

“I'm pretty sure that's heretical... calling churchmen liars,” Hector commented cynically, but didn't disagree. “So hell's... not eternal torment?”

I waggled a hand before kneeling to reach another set of herbs. “It's not really a place at all. It's... outside reality, I think? It's where the soul goes after it's untethered from our physical bodies. If you don't fit the qualifications to get into heaven or haven't pledged your soul to a pagan god or goddess, then your soul just kind of... drifts away and gets exposed to so much raw magical energy that it forgets the memories of your current life and attaches to a new body to live a new life.”

Hector blinked at me, startled from the information dump. “Huh... yeah, I guess souls would have to be real, too. We are talking about heaven and hell and everything. We'd have to have souls.”

“You are your soul,” I corrected tartly. “You have a body.”

Another round of blinking. “I... don't get it?”

I sighed and shook my head. It'd be useful to be able to make an analogy about software and hardware right now, but the comparison would be meaningless to the young man. “You think and feel with your soul. You body... is like a puppet. Without the animating force of the puppeteer behind it, it would just sit there doing nothing.”

“Okay... so, if a soul is like the puppeteer, then couldn't you just pick up a new body-er, puppet if yours stopped working, ah... died?” Hector stumbled through the question awkwardly.

I narrowed my gaze at him. “That's incredibly dark magic, Hector.”

His eyes widened, looking alarmed and surreptitiously glancing around us again. “It is? Shit, I didn't mean-”

“Think about what you just asked,” I advised him, taking pains to keep my voice neutral and free of judgment. “To 'take over' a new puppet, you'd have to find one without a puppeteer... or make one.”

I looked up from the wild plants I held in one hand and drew the thumb of my free hand across my neck pointedly. His eyes widened and he looked away, face simultaneously flushed and pale at the implication of what he'd unknowingly asked. “I... sorry. I wasn't thinking. This is all just... really incredible. I guess some of the stuff about evil witches is real then, huh?”

“More than I'd like to admit,” I sighed. “And... it's not your fault. You're curious, I would be too in your position. Hell, I am in your position, really. I only started my apprenticeship last year, so a lot of this is new to me as well.”

“Right... you just came back with Old Dutch last year,” Hector mumbled.

“But, to be perfectly fair to your earlier question,” I sighed and returned to the topic. “There are ways to cheat death that don't involve human sacrifice. Usually creating some type of golem or homunculus to house your soul after death. It's just... those are expensive and time consuming, in addition to requiring a high level of skill and technical knowledge. The types of people who would be desperate enough to attempt something like that...”

“Aren't the type of people who would want to put in the time, money, and labor to do it the right way,” Hector nodded, grimacing. “If there even is a right way. Cheating Death. I really need to think more before opening my mouth. That's what it is, isn't it? Defying God's heavenly design. That would definitely get you locked out of heaven.”

“Eh,” I waggled my hand again as I stood to make my way towards another area. I'd been worried there wouldn't be a good crop this early in the year, but the weather had been warm enough that we were seeing early sprouts.

“Oh, now you're just shitting me,” Hector rolled his eyes. “Okay, Mr. Wizard. How is that not defying God's grand design?”

“First off, it's sorcerer, not wizard,” I replied. Hector opened his mouth. “And, yes, it matters. Second, the God of Abraham's divine proscription against magic is specifically against any spell or working which is malicious against another person or would taint the soul with pagan or demonic power. Extending your own life, as long as you don't do it through murder or human sacrifice, is perfectly allowable... even if it's frowned upon by most church doctrine and would likely be condemned by most pastors. Still, only magic that is deemed 'black' by the church – mainly the Catholics – tarnishes your soul.”

I paused, then frowned. “Except for where the caster is granted a pardon by one ordained in the Christian faith. Especially if you're given permission beforehand, that can absolve you of a lot of the sin such an act would involve.”

Hector pursed his lips. “You know... I think Luther had it right. It's downright medieval to hear something like that.”

I snorted. “A lot of magical culture is trapped in the past, from a modern perspective. The Professor's books are all handwritten manuscripts, for instance. I'm not sure if I've seen a single printed work in his collection of grimoires.”

Hector hummed, bouncing one leg on the ball of its foot nervously. “So... how do you get into heaven, then? What's the secret?”

“There isn't one,” I rolled my eyes. “They tell you how to do it every Sunday.”

Hector crossed his arms and gave me a level look.

I sighed yet again. “Fine. Mechanically... on a spiritual level, when someone prays to a given deity, the God of Abraham or otherwise, what you're actually doing is aligning the energies of your soul with theirs. Note, though, when I say 'pray,' I don't just mean getting down on your knees and reciting the words. You have to mean them, from the heart of your being. You have to want – legitimately and authentically desire – to be closer to your chosen god.”

Realization filled Hector's eyes. “And if you do that enough...”

“You stain your soul in their colors,” I confirmed. “When your soul leaves your body that resonance serves to mark you as one of their own and allows you entrance to their afterlife. That's the simple version, anyway. Prayer is more complex than what I can really go over, too. Praying for material things rarely does anything, but praying for strength or resolve or wisdom often empowers the spark of divine essence in your soul, granting you a sliver of ability to accomplish your goals. There's obviously more to it than just that, but-”

“Like what?” Hector pushed, then drew back a bit. “Sorry, it's just... you're probably the only person I'll ever meet that'll tell me the truth about this without all the pomp and circumstance.”

“Keeping to the ideals espoused in whatever teachings you know of your god or goddess,” I added. “People being people... even some of the stuff in the Torah, Holy Bible, or Quran is contradictory given the nature of their authors as flawed mortals. What's generally important is keeping to the interpretation of the work that you believe to be correct and acting in accordance with it. Knowingly acting to contravene the teachings of such a text would diminish your closeness with God, in this context meaning lessening the amount of divine resonance with Him. Similarly, keep to the holy days and celebrations...”

There was a distant look on Hector's face as I talked, explaining the basic mechanism of divine magic. Eventually, I paused to catch my breath and take a drink from the canteen at my waist, cleaning my hands with a basic spell in the process. The sudden appearance of bright circles of magical light seemed to jar him out of whatever fugue he'd fallen into.

“Penny for your thoughts?” I asked, struck by sudden curiosity. The day had mostly been me talking so far, and we were well into our little forest field trip. Plus, Hector had had his world fundamentally jarred by today's events. Even if I felt I had his measure, it would be good to know if he'd be okay on his own.

Or if I needed to change plans and wipe his mind anyway.

I hoped it wasn't the latter, I really did.

“Just wondering if this is what the disciples felt like, back in the day,” Hector admitted bluntly. “And wondering whether or not I should be writing all of this down.”

I made a face akin to what one would when they bit down on a lemon. “Please don't joke about that.”

Hector shook his head. “I mean... people should know about this, shouldn't they? Why don't they, come to think of it? Angels are real, right? So why don't they just come down and tell everyone straight up?”

“They did,” I pointed out. “It's not their fault that we measure our lives in decades – if we're lucky – and they measure theirs in millennia. They've shown up and explained things a few times by now, we just keep forgetting on a societal level how this stuff works. And, to be fair to the various denominations, they do make a good shot at explaining things in a way people can understand: obey the rules, pray a lot, ask forgiveness when you make a mistake, and desire closeness with God.”

“Yeah, but they could...” Hector started, obviously struggling for words. “Tell people. Or something.”

I rolled my eyes as he threw his hands up. “Careful with the bag! And... ugh, I can't believe I'm defending organized religion, but... they do. You've been told every Sunday that all this stuff is real. It was your choice not to believe without evidence being thrown in your face.”

Hector ran a hand through his hair and, more mindful of the bag he was holding, shook his head. “It just... seems wrong, somehow. Not to do something. Couldn't you call up an angel? Or Old Dutch?”

I barked a startled laugh. “Jeus, Hector... we just talked about thinking before you speak. You want something that will bar you from heaven? That's a good start. Forcefully summoning an angel to do your bidding? The best case scenario is that it doesn't work. Angels are powerful supernatural beings that don't work on human logic or reason. And, frankly, they don't like humans all that much either.”

Hector blinked and reared back. “They don't? Why not?”

I looked heavenward for relief, but found only the cold blue sky of a crisp late winter/early spring day. “Imagine you live near a tribe of illiterate, violent hill people who occasionally kill each other for reasons you don't understand and don't want to understand, smell like wild animals most of the time, have used things you've taught them as justification for horrible crimes in the past, and react with fear and panic every time you remind them you exist.”

I turned my deadpan expression on him fully, enjoying the dawning realization on his face.

“Would you want to interact with these people more than you absolutely had to?” I pressed him, just to drive the point home.

“When you put it like that...” Hector admitted sourly, turning away from me. “Is that really how they see us?”

I sighed tiredly. “The angels? Mostly not. They tend to be a lot more compassionate and forgiving than most of the other supernatural factions, but even they have shades of those opinions and have resolved that it's better to leave us to our own devices than personally be the cause of any more violence being carried out in their names.”

I took another draw from my canteen.

“The Grigori, the fallen angels, mostly hate us for spurning the gift of forgiveness God allowed us to have. A gift which many of them would commit horrible atrocities to receive, even if they're too proud to admit it and would kill you for suggesting it. The devils... they mostly think we're good deniable assets that are easy to corrupt and use for their own ends.”

I bit my lip and cut myself off there. It was for the best that I didn't air the whole of my views on the various supernatural races.

I'd hesitate to call the opinions of devils a very complementary view, but we at least hold a certain value in their eyes depending on our individual skills and powers. At the very least it was more nuanced than the impotent paternalism of heaven. Though there was the same tendency between all three of the Abrahamic Factions to assume humans were there to do their bidding and nothing more. Angels saw us as creations of God, owing allegiance to them in his absence. The fallen, in turn, saw us as younger siblings in a similar way to their untarnished brethren, merely in a more abusive light. They believed we owed them for jump-starting civilization and teaching us the various secrets of primitive technologies that helped get the first city-states off the ground.

Devils just thought we were weak and, therefore, fair game.

It's probably just elements of the show still living rent-free in my head, but that kind of honesty is refreshing, at least, instead of patronizing.

“That's the real reason why the supernatural elements of the world don't show up as often as they used to,” I continued, taking a different train of thought. “Humans are loud, obnoxious, violent, and don't care about understanding other peoples. With our populations increasing the way they have, we started encroaching on the habitats of magical creatures a long time ago and driving them into the underworld or into outright extinction. Save for the groups of humans who already have ties to the moonlit world, they really don't want more of us interacting with them.”

Which had been a bitch of a thing to figure out, involving quite a bit of reading between the lines on various secret Vatican documents as well as the correspondence of the Grigori and devil's spies. Another limitation of my Gear had reared its ugly head in my attempts to understand the magical cultures of non-human species...

Specifically, Encyclopedia was a repository of human knowledge.

Or, at least, knowledge put to record by human hands.

I held out hope that I'd be able to, one day, develop some kind of Balance Breaker or advanced evolution of the Sacred Gear that would broaden my horizons, but in the meantime I was loath to complain about only having access to the largest and most complete collection of knowledge in human history.

“That's... really depressing, actually,” Hector admitted candidly, frowning.

I sighed, idly remembering the fact that I'd been correct in my assertion that I was going to do that a lot today. “Tell me about it.”

We were quiet for a long while after that, working through the various patches of herbs that I'd frequented whenever van Beek had sent me on these errands. Not everything was ready for harvesting, but there was enough that it would satisfy the old sorcerer for now. I knew I'd be back in a week double-checking to see if the remainder were ripe enough to be cut, but there was nothing for that.

“Let's talk about something else,” Hector stated. “What was that trick you used on Tom and those two others?”

This time, I groaned. I just knew that the older boy was going to try and get me to hypnotize a girl for him.

Regrettably, I was right.

After I'd very firmly shot that idea down, we managed to finish up our trek through the forest and Hector was delighted by how well a quick spell cleaned up clothing that had very much not been meant for such a walk. Another quick snap of a mending spell saw the tiny rips and tears from the various branches we'd brushed against sealed themselves. With one last admonishment to keep his mouth shut, and a tacit warning of what would happen if he didn't, I returned to the cottage I shared with my master.

I cast the cleaning spell again, wiping away the mud from my walk as I kicked off my shoes.

“Boy! There you are!” Marteen van Beek growled, prowling around a corner. “Come! We have work to do. I have received word that acquaintances from the Hunter's Guild will be traveling through here next week. I will have a list of chores for you to make ready the spare room. Now get busy with the herbs! And put the stew on!”

I restrained the urge to give another sigh. There was always the chance that the Professor would take that as me giving him lip.

It was best not to provoke him.

“Yes Master, I'll get right on that,” I stated instead.

Well, there goes my reading time for a while.

~~~

This one was a little more difficult than usual, but I got it out by my self-appointed deadline at least. This will be one of the last buffer chapters for this story before it gets its own thread. But, this being a buffer chapter, that means there's not going to be a public rollover this time around. So enjoy your early access with an air of well-earned smugness.

I hope everyone has a great weekend. As for me? I'm heading to bed.

Next chapter will probably be more Mind Games or that chapter of Marvel Industrious I mentioned last time.