The Kansas Incident. - Aspect 3.

[joegoda]

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After George made sure that everyone was taken care of with whatever beverage that had been ordered, I hunkered down on my elbows and laid it all out on the table.

I explained, much as I did to Tim, and even included, for no extra charge, my additional rational about why it was important that I stop this guy.

"To put it simply, I gotta stop him," I said, "before he stops us. And he will, one by one, stop us, until he feels I'm weak enough to finally stop me."

"And by stop," Jack said, "you mean dead." It wasn't a question.

"Or worse," I nodded.

"There's worse than death?" Ken asked. He looked around, thought about it, and then said, "Oh. Yeah."

"There are folks in Sedan that are worse off then dead, Ken," Sherry said, making sure he understood. "To be forever miserable and not able to take your own life or get better? That's much, much worse than dead."

"I get it," Ken said. "I was just trying to be funny." Ken is a good guy. He's just kind of new to this extended family business. He's coming round, though.

"Some of you," I told them, "I'd just as soon not come." That's me, mister subtle. "Sherry, Tim, Craig and Charity, you gotta come, if you will. April, if you want to come, you're welcome to. You're a hell of a shot with that bow of yours. Chris... you're welcome to come to. It's just that I don't know how to explain what we'll be facing."

Sherry nodded grimly and said, "OF course I'll be there."

Charity boldly said, "Hell yes! I wouldn't miss my chance of being a blue fairy again. Kick ass!"

Craig gave me his solemn nod. "Count me in."

Chris, April's husband is a big guy, but not because of size. He's maybe an inch or two taller than me, and just as solid, or maybe more solid. He's younger, and most of his hair is still black. He's got a Midwesterner type of face, open and honest, with laughing eyes of the sort that don't really miss much. Most folks that meet him underestimate his wit and intelligence. I did too, once. Now he's pretty near a second arm in the group.

"April's told me a bit about what happened at Redbud," he said. "Frankly, I just want to see what I look like when we cross over to that other place... the watchamacallit."

"Transition?" I offered.

"Yeah. That's the place." His eyes took on a blue shine and he grinned hugely. "I just think it would be cool, so count me in."

"Okay," I nodded. "Glad to have you. Ken? How bout you? You have the choice to come or stay. I know you don't believe in this stuff..."

"It's not that I don't believe," he began, "only that I haven't seen any proof of any of it."

Ken, Sherry's husband was raised to believe that if you can't see it, then it must not exist. A true Newtonian, by which I refer to Newtonian physics, which tends to include that which you can see, but nothing of that which you cannot see. Newtonian physics is the school of "I'll believe it when I see it" made real.

"Still," I offered, "you have the absolute right to stay here if you want."

Ken looked at Sherry, and then looked at me. Then he shrugged and said, "If Sherry's going, then I might as well go too. Heck, I might have some fun, who knows?"

I smiled grimly at him. "You realize that there may be some of us that don't come back from this, right?"

Ken nodded and smiled at me. "You realize that part of me still thinks you're full of shit, right?"

"Fair enough," I said. Far be it from me to argue with a mind that's made up. Besides, I think our boy Ken was starting to be in love with his wife, after a long absence. It was kind of cute, really.


"And that leaves Jack and Kit," I said, as I turned my eyes to them. "You two are not going."

"What?" Kit said. "Why?"

"Because," I said. "You have a family to look to."

"So does Tim and Sherry and April and Chris," Kit pointed out.

"Yep," I said, nodding. "And you are home schooling your kid, and Jack has work to go to tomorrow."

"And so does Ken and Chris and April and Charity and Craig." Kit was getting pretty adamant. I looked toward Jack and sighed.

"Chet's right, hon," Jack said. "This is one we'll pass on." He looked at me, grimly. "You need someone to tell the story if you don't get back."

"Yep." I frowned. "It's not that I would welcome the help, folks. Really. Frankly, I'd like to see Jack in the middle of a fray fighting side by side with Tim, and I suspect Kit isn't a slouch either. But I just have this feeling, see, that you two need to stay here. Call it a hunch."

"Okay," Jack said. "I agree with you. This time, we'll stay here, but I expect to hear the story from your lips when you get back, because you will be coming back."

"Deal," I said.

"Wait a minute," Kit interjected. "Don't I get a say in this?" She turned to her husband. "Jack, it's not like us to back down from a fight, especially when the cause is just."

"Kit," I explained slowly, "Lawrence doesn't know you guys. You and jack are the only ones sitting at this table that wasn't somehow involved in the Redbud battle. I'd like to have an ace in the hole if I can."

I sighed and I could see that I still hadn't convinced her. "Look," I told her finally, "I know you're a major power. Hell, I can see Major Arcana written all over your face. Jack's too. For all I know, you may be the Queen of Hearts and Jack may be the Jack of Shadows. I don't know. But I'd like that little secret to be up my sleeve in case I come running back here with my tail between my legs, assuming I'll have legs to run with. I know you don't like it, but that's the way it is." I reached across the table. "Trust me, I need you here."

Although her face showed me she still wasn't fully convinced, she nodded slowly. "All right," she said, darkly. "But if you get into trouble, I expect you to call us. You have Jack's number."

"Oh, believe me," I chuckled, "if I get into trouble, I'll be calling everybody."

"So," Craig asked, "What are we going to do?"

"First off," I told him, "you guys need to take tomorrow off. I know it's not going to be easy, unless you're retired like Tim, but I need to get back up there, and I need you with me. Is that going to be a problem?"

Nobody indicated that it would be much of a problem, and Ken and Craig dialed their bosses or their HR departments right then and there and coughed as much as possible as they explained they would be taking a sick day.

"Good," April smiled, "serve that bastard right to work the store without me for a while." April didn't really get along well with her boss.

Chris said he had one call he had to make, but it would be in the morning. "What time do I absolutely need to be up there?"

"Twilight is my worst time," I explained, "so we'll need to meet after sunset. I say if we get up there around dinner time and meet at Christie's house, that will give us enough time to let night fall and we can use the moon like we did at Redbud Valley."

"We used the Dark of the Moon that time," April reminded me.

"Yeah," I told her, "And that was because the Gateways were must vulnerable at that time. This time, all we need is a bit of moonlight. I know where the Gate to Transition is up there. Crossing over should be an even easier piece of cake."

"Great," she said, "the last piece of cake was pretty tough. I think I'm still sore in some places. And you say this guy is worse than the last one?"

"Um." I considered what to say. "Yeah. The last time we faced an army of 'Bads and it was this Lawrence, I think, who was in control of them. I believe that he was trying to release an Old God, one of the biggies from Lovecraft's world. Granted, we didn't really have to fight Cthulhu, all we had to do was keep the door closed so he couldn't get in."

"And we kicked their butts!" Charity said happily.

"Yes, we did," Tim interjected. "Mostly. We didn't defeat them, if I understand what Chester's talking about. We really just pissed them off." He looked at me.

"Well..." I paused. "I think we may have pissed off their boss. The 'Bads don't feel much at all, except hunger and maybe something rudimentary, like hate. I don't know. I never stopped to talk to one of 'em."

"Maybe you should," suggested Sherry. "Maybe they aren't as bad as all that."

Honey," I said to her, "I don't want to talk to them. They're called the 'Bads for a reason. They are fed by the negative emotions we feel. They come from somewhere on the far side of the Otherwhere, I think, and they aren't much on communication. They exist to feed, and that's it."

"But...," Sherry continued, her face scrunched up in concentration. "Okay, so you're saying they'll like a puppy or a cat. Like a pet, but a really mean pet. Like a piranha."

"Yes!" Someone had finally given a name to what I couldn't say. "The 'Bads are like piranhas, except in the case of Andrew Lawrence, they are like trained piranhas. He has them trained to go where he sends them."

"But why?" Craig asked, shaking his head in confusion. "The 'Bads seem to go where there is an abundance of bad feelings, feed on it, foster it, and make it grow, right?"

I nodded at him. "Yeah, that's the way I've got 'em figured out. I could be wrong, though."

"So," he continued, "what does this Lawrence character get out of it? Okay, I mean, I get that he's this Ammit guy, the Eater of the Dead. But why send out little swarms of the 'Bads to make things worse. You've already told us that the 'Bads don't really kill anyone, they just make people feel worse. That doesn't really fit with the 'Eater of the Dead' scenario, you know? Because to eat the dead, doesn't your victim have to be dead?"

"Hey," I said, feeling a bit defensive, "I didn't say I had it all figured out. Just bits and pieces of it. I think that Ammit is going for a global sort of depression sort of thing. And if you have enough depressed people, feeding each other's doubts and worries, then you're going to have suicides and murder. Since Ammit can only devour those souls that are deemed not worthy for an afterlife, those poor bastards that kill themselves or kill someone else become an instant meal."

"Wait...," Jack said. "You just said that Ammit can only devour souls deemed not worthy to move on, right?" I nodded. "Why is that?"

"Because that is how his Aspect is programmed," I explained. "An Aspect can only do what they were believed to be able to do, nothing more. They aren't autonomous. They don't actually think for themselves. They can only move within the parameters that brought them to life in the first place."

And that gave me an idea. "Jack," I said, "you're a genius!"

"We knew that," Kit said. "What did he do this time?"

"Let's get back to that in a bit, okay?" I said, waving my hands to brush that thought to the corner. "Let me finish what I think is Lawrence... or Ammit's evil plan. I think, in working in conjunction with Cthulhu, Ammit was going to drive the rates of unworthy souls way, way up. Then, once he had gained enough power, he would open the gateway to the Old Ones, setting Cthulhu free to cross over, and reestablish Lovecraft's Old Ones as the new order of things."

"For what reason?" Tim scratched his chin and drained his beer. He raised his glass, signaling George that he was ready for another.

"So that things would only get worse," I told him. "More despair, more hopelessness, more suicides, more madness, and more murder."

"Dogs and cats, living together," Sherry said.

"Mass hysteria," we all said together.

"Right." I nodded vigorously. "And we're the ghost busters." I looked over at Jack. "I have an idea that I need your help with."

"Sure," Jack said. "At least I'll be doing something. What did you have in mind?"

"Osiris is Ammit's keeper," I explained. "Right now, Ammit is running free, off the lease, so to speak, and has been for a long time." I let that sink in and then went on. "If we can find his keeper, meaning Osiris, then maybe we'll find a leash for the bad dog."

"Annnnd?" Jack prompted.

"Since an Aspect can only do what they are programmed to do, which you brilliantly pointed out, then if we can find Osiris, we have control over Ammit. I need you to search the 'net to find any sort of modern day occurrences of anyone, anywhere, that talks about, or is talked about, acting like they are this Osiris Aspect. It would have to be someone that had some sort of trauma, because Aspects only come out after something triggers them."

Jack looked skeptical. "You realize that's pretty near impossible, right? Six billion people in the world and you want me to find one that's acting flaky?"

"Not just flaky, Jack," I told him, "but flaky in a particular way." I spread my hands. "Look, it's a long shot, and to be honest, it's not the only option. But it'll help. A lot. If you can find Osiris and we can bring both Aspects together, then I'm thinking that Ammit will become the good dog he is supposed to be."

"What's the other option?" Chris chimed in.

"We go up there and kick their butts!" Charity said. I worried about her always wanting to kick someone's butt. She enjoyed it just a little too much. A lot of repressed anger there, I think.

"Well, yes and no," I told her. "While you guys," I nodded at Craig and Charity, April and Chris, "keep the 'Bads or whatever else may come along at bay, we three," I indicated Tim and Sherry, "will figure out how to neutralize Ammit."

"We could kill Lawrence," someone suggested. It was low enough I didn't know which of us said it. Maybe it was Pan.

"No," I said flatly, "we can't kill Lawrence. He's... well, Ammit has taken him over. I've seen it done once, in Oregon. When an Aspect takes over someone, their power grows and they almost become what they were originally. Lawrence is, I think, an innocent in this. Killing him is out."

"So, what do we do?" Tim asked.

"An Aspect comes to the forefront by getting the permission of the host. Sometime in the past Lawrence gave permission to Ammit to come out and play. Ammit has now refused to leave the field. We either have to get Lawrence to shove Ammit back down past his subconscious, which will be really hard to do... Ammit has a might big foothold, or..."

"Or?" Sherry asked.

"Or," I shrugged, "find some other way. Maybe there's an amulet that Lawrence wears, or a ring with an old Egyptian symbol or something like that. Maybe there's a special rock where Ammit pulls his strength from. I don't know. But we'll find it. Because we have to."

"So," Tim said, "all we have to do is find the secret decoder ring and we defeat the dark overlord of the 'Bads."

I looked sheepish. "Yeah, something like that."

A silence fell over the group. Each was thinking their own thoughts, pondering, I'm pretty sure, the sanity of their friend Chester. Chris broke the quiet.

"I like this plan! I'm excited to be a part of it." The grin on his face was enormous. "Let's do it!"

"When do we start?" Charity asked.

"Well, I'm going to need a ride back to Sedan," I said.

"Done," Tim told me.

"Okay then," I continued, "we'll leave here about noon, Tim and me..."

"And me," Sherry said.

"Us," Ken corrected her.

"And us," Charity said, clutching Craig's hand. He nodded, seriously.

"Okay, we'll leave here about noonish, one thirty at the least. That will put us there about two or three in the afternoon. We can eat and meet Christie and Cat and organize."

"Cat?" Charity raised her eyebrows.

"Yeah," I told her, "she's a pixie. Bout five inches tall. Green. With wings."

"Cool!" She said.

"So," Tim announced, raising his glass, "Here's a toast to us, the ones who are walking into unknown danger, to beat back the bad guys and free the good guys."

We raised our glasses with him and a lot of clinking occurred.

"To family," I said, and then added, "to legends."

"Again," Sherry added.

"Again," I agreed.