Capeworld Comics

Martin commanded his dogs to wedge a broom against the doorknob. There might be sounds, horrible sounds, and he didn’t want his friends to come in once they started.

Martin gazed into the mirror.

He saw no fear in his face and found it good that he could so easily disguise his inner thoughts.

He strained his psychic eyes to see deep into the mirror, deep into where Bloody Mary hid. He saw a dot, a single black pupil in the center of the reflective surface.

Martin breathed like his teachers taught him to–in through his nose, out through his mouth.

Martin spoke in the language of the Dyeus, the language of angels.

“Zacare.”

An electric jolt shot through his body. He tasted blood in his mouth. It was only minor damage, but he had worked only a minor miracle. It wasn’t meant to do anything more than draw Bloody Mary’s notice. It was a nudge, not a pull.

This was no manesological Operation. Manesological Operations were nothing more than men mimicking palimpsest memories of the Dyeus’ spiritual art and science. This however, was the art, and the science, and the power, of the Dyeus.

Martin saw the ectoplasmic traces of Bloody Mary as little black specs in the mirror. They floated like soot from a fire caught up in a gust of wind.

“Here we go,” he muttered. “Let’s grab the tiger’s tail and pull.”

“Zacare da gafaonts.”

Martin set his mind ablaze with power. No eye of blood and tissue could have seen the light that radiated from his body in spiked eruptions. This was light beyond olprt. This was source-light. This was the light of the single eye that stood at the summit of all things, that gazed down upon all and in gazing illuminated all. Though this light was significantly dimmed by its descent, it still held infinite potency. The Dyeus called it akele, which meant daughter of the purest light. Another interpretation was moon light.

Martin’s dogs braced his body as he convulsed. The power felt like thorns rolling beneath his skin, but pain was nothing. Pain was a primitive, solipsistic form of awareness and he learned to expand his awareness far, far beyond pain as an early lesson.

The specs in the mirror expanded and devoured the mirror as night devoured day. Martin saw himself dimly as if in an obsidian sheet.

“There you are.” Martin said. “Hello, dear. You aren’t like other ghosts. But that’s fine. I’m not like other manesologists. I would like to talk, if we may, and if you’re capable of it.”

The mirror started to brighten. Martin felt Bloody Mary try to move herself deeper into the mirror, deeper into the Astral.

“Allar.”

The mirror stopped brightening and then darkened to a hateful, angry black. Martin could no longer see his reflection in the slate black mirror.

“I can’t let you go. May we talk?” Martin asked.

It is hard to describe what Martin then felt. It was not a biological feeling, not a feeling based in any of the human senses. It could, perhaps, be best described as a tightening sensation, as if a giant hand has closed around Martin–and then, pulled.

Martin smirked.

“So, now you’re trying to do to me what you did to the girl? Are you surprised? I think you are. I think you’ve been surprised twice. You didn’t want to claw at my reflection. You tried to run at first. You didn’t think I could call you and I did. And now you’re finding out that you can’t take my reflection at all.”

Martin chuckled.

“Oh, you know what you remind me of? A cat. A big, black cat. You remind me of a cat we keep back in Blackwall named Tybalt. He’s a little pest. He likes to rub on my coworker’s leg and scratch at mine. He scratches and scratches and scratches. That’s you. Go ahead and keep scratching. Go ahead and keep trying to take my reflection. You might be able to hurt me, you might even be able to kill me, but not in that way, no, not with your favorite trick.”

The glass began to creak like teeth set against each other tightly, angrily.

Bloody Mary removed her grip, but Martin felt a new sensation. It was like the feeling one gets when standing on a high precipice. He could feel his mind being pulled into the mirror, into the Astral, into Bloody Mary’s very being.

Martin knew that in order to retrieve Audrey’s reflection, he would have to allow Bloody Mary to swallow him. He would have to dive into the very heart of a voracious, insatiable mirror which fed on children. But it almost wasn’t a matter of him allowing it. Her pull was strong, very strong.

“I had a feeling you would be this powerful. Just my luck. You’re one of the most powerful manes I’ve ever encountered. It’s such a shame that your power is wasted on harming children.”

Martin took a deep breath, in through the nose, out through the mouth, as he was taught.

It was a wonderful feeling to breathe deeply and freely. Martin hoped that he would be able to do so again.

“Look at me closely, Bloody Mary, I want you to see something. Do you see my eyes?Do you see how blue they are? The bluest eyes you’ve ever seen, no doubt. These glasses of mine have special lenses. They dull the true color of my eyes. You see, I’m a creature that lives behind a glass too.”

Martin removed his glasses.

What was behind the lenses threw two purple smears of light onto the blackened mirror.

“See? I’m strange too. I might even be stranger than you.”

Martin yielded to Bloody Mary’s pull. He allowed her to yank his mind out of his body and what was more, he put his own force behind her pull. He rose fast into the Astral, fast enough, he hoped, to catch the manes off-guard.

He rose into darkness and he felt his mind shiver with the sudden liberation. He was unbound, without a body, without weight, and soared through a dark sky that was without stars or limit. He left behind his cortisol and adrenaline burdened blood and with it his anxiety. He was pure mind, pure courage. He was pure will, pure action without any hesitation, and it was joyful being what he was.

But his joy was short-lived. The darkness suddenly drained from the universe and revealed glass. Glass above, glass below, glass all around. The universe was a paneled with mirrors, and these mirrors were the eyes of Bloody Mary. She was surprised that her recent meal still twisted and turned inside her gut, but now her attention was drawn within herself. She looked within, turned all her eyes inward to gaze upon Martin, and set them to work destroying him.

As pure will, Martin had no body, and no reflection, but such things did not matter in a world of pure abstraction. He was reflected anyway. He was reflected invisibly across an infinity of mirrors which began to crack and shatter. The mirrors shrieked as they fractured first into black spider-webs and then into crystalline mists.

Martin felt himself shatter again and again and again. This was sympathetic magic. This was sympathetic magic–stab a doll to stab a man, break a man’s reflection to break a man.

Martin countered by armoring himself in a form based on his body–two legs, two arms, and a head. Bodily manifestation was a basic defensive technique. Psychic duelists who dismissed their bodies as chaff, as husks, neglected the benefits of a neurology crafted over aeons by evolution. The body, with its reflexes and instincts, was much faster than the conscious mind. Thus when the body was replicated here, in this place where the conscious mind ruled, it became like a swift blade, a weapon that, while not decisive on its own, was useful in psychic combat.

Now that his form had a material substance, his reflections likewise filled with form and color. Martin could see his body distorted in a million ways across a million panes of glass. But the pain was less now that it was limited to a body. There was only so many ways a doll could be twisted.

Martin held his hands in front of himself.

“Hubaro.”

Light gathered in the space between his palms and was reflected on every surface. The light was his light, and carried the purple hue of his old wound. The mirrors became his, and now that they were his, he could do away with them.

“Avavago.”

The mirrors shattered. Broken glass drifted like snow in the darkness. Martin felt as if he was inside a black snow globe. The glass swirled about him in prismatic currents.

“I put out your eyes, Bloody Mary, and I’ll do more to you unless you give up the girl’s reflection.”

The darkness roared as if to say “Never!”

“So you do understand me. That’s good. I was afraid I was dealing with a manes of animal intelligence. You will show me the girl. Now.”

“Om Oma.”

Martin recoiled at what his spell revealed.

Before him floated not one, but several reflections. He saw Audrey Lewis, but also several young women he didn’t know. Not one of their faces revealed peace. They showed horror, surprise, or confusion, but not peace.

“How many have you done this to?” he asked.

It was a moment of hesitation that Bloody Mary seized upon. The purple light drained from the shards. They fell again under Bloody Mary’s power and she hurled them at Martin like a wind full of razor blades.

Martin felt tickling mixed with sharp, abrasive pain through his mental body. But he did not panic. He had been taught that it was over as soon as one panicked.

“Gmicalz.”

Purple fire erupted from his body. Martin could have spread the fire to the corners of the universe and burnt Bloody Mary into submission, but that risked damaging Audrey’s reflection, and so he pulsed the fire balefully from his body, just enough to get the stream of shards to back off. Then, acting on a hunch, he created a threatening blaze around the reflections.

The world wailed.

“Do you see that? Do you see what I have around your precious collection? That’s the fire of Acar. I don’t think you know who Acar is, but you should know what fire is.”

The flames began to turn into brittle glass waves. Bloody Mary’s attention was upon the threat, and that gave Martin time to observe her with his psychic eyes and to think.

She was some sort of fetch, that was obvious going by how she responded to the folk mythology of Bloody Mary. That meant that her personal memories were weak. She thought she was Bloody Mary because she could not remember what she was. She also did not have a body of her own. She appeared only as a presence or as mirrors. And she was highly protective of the bodily images she had stolen.

Martin thought he understood.

Without a body, she took the bodies of others. But evidently one body was not enough. Perhaps only one element of each body was to her liking and she sought to recreate herself by combining pieces? Perhaps she was simply a very vain and fickle creature?

But maybe he strengthened her memory of her body, of herself, she would quit her mad obsession? Giving Bloody Mary sanity would be easier than trying to take Audrey’s reflection from her by force.

“Sehul Menot Hngnis.”

Bloody Mary changed. A smear of iridescence appeared next to the reflections. It elongated itself at several points. It formed a head, a body, and limbs.

It was a change, but not nearly enough of a change.

The world shimmered.

If Martin had succeeded in awakening any slumbering memories or self-images, they were not dissuading Bloody Mary from retaliation.

All was burning, glaring light. Martin burned like a gnat inside a fireplace. But through the pain, he conjured up a counter.

He held out his hands and between them summoned a glass orb.

“That hurts very bad.” Martin said through clenched teeth. “I think you should feel what it feels like.”

“Val Gisa.”

Martin’s orb flashed once. It reflected all the fire, all the light, and all the pain back at Bloody Mary. Then it was dark. There was no fight left to reflect. Bloody Mary had ended her attack. Like all that preyed on the defenseless, Bloody Mary could dish it out, but she couldn’t take it.

With the last remains of her power, Bloody Mary threw herself upon her reflections and shielded them and herself within a spun tumbleweed of glass tubes.

Martin separated his hands. His crystal ball vanished.

Though there was no air to breathe in this metaphysical realm, he mimed the old technique of his teachers and breathed in through his nose and then slowly out through his mouth. The memory of the act calmed him.

The battle was over, but not the violence.

Martin pooled his will and generated a purple fireball in front of the glass tumbleweed that protected Bloody Mary and her treasures. The purple light reflected off every glass tube and wire, staining Bloody Mary’s defenses with Martin’s power.

“I ought to affix you to a stone and toss you into an ocean. I can do that to you. I can make you stare at the ocean floor for all eternity, and you know what? I think you deserve it! Seven girls, and all just to what–to try on their reflections? You mad animal! I really ought to punish you for that!”

The glare that was Bloody Mary shimmered in fear like shaken foil, like a distressed icicle.

Martin felt that fear, and for a moment, he delighted in it, but then he recalled more words from his old teacher, who continued to guide him, even after he left the path of the thaumaturgist.

“A thaumaturgist looks upon the wicked as invalids whom one must pity and cure. The world, with its errors and vices, is to him God’s hospital, and he wishes to serve in it.”

In this world, there was no air, and Martin’s body was but a shadow of his body, but he still found the familiar action of breathing in through the nose and out through his mouth comforting.

“Wish to serve.” he commanded himself.

Martin calmed himself. He brought himself down from the fury of pain and battle and regained his composure.

“Your mind is fractured. I cannot hate you. Even with your components strengthened, you remain a shattered thing. I will affix you, but not to a rock, and I will not toss you into the ocean. We will…I’m not sure what we will do with you, but we will try to be as gentle as possible with you. That aside, I need that reflection, and if I have to crack you open like a watermelon and pull it out of you, I will, even if I break myself in the process. I…”

Martin suddenly had an idea.

“How about a trade? You like reflections, but they’re never enough for you. What if I could give you all the reflections that you want?”

The fireball shrank to a single point of light and withdrew to his finger.

“Here, let me show you.”

“Matorb.”

The purple point shot from Martin’s finger like a bullet and hit Bloody Mary in the center of her massless being.

There was an explosion of light. The entire universe of Bloody Mary’s mind fragmented like a broken mirror. Purple fissures spread like spider-webs in every direction carving reality into panes. Each pain held a color of the iridescent shimmer that ruled this universe magnified and distilled into a tessellated rainbow that stretched several infinities in all directions.

The shimmer crawled out of her glass nest and looked around. Martin could tell she was pleased by what she saw.

The narcissist had finally found a mirror large enough for her ego.

“I’ve fragmented you, like light through a prism.” Martin explained. “All this around us? This is all you. This is you from every possible angle that can be expressed mathematically and some that can’t. Here are your reflections. Here are enough reflections for a lifetime of introspective dress up.”

Martin held up his hand. Purple light gathered at his fingertips.

He snapped his fingers.

The universe returned to being a dull, featureless black.

The shimmer screamed herself into a prickly mass of sharp light.

“You want it back? Then we trade. You give me the reflections you’ve stolen, all of them, and agree to obey my every command, and I will bring it back. But if you cross me, at any time in the future, I will take it away forever!”

The shimmer reached down with arms like morning sunshine into the glass enclosure. She speared the reflections and brought them out before Martin.

She placed them messily before the manesologist, like a pile of clothes. Their forms and colors blended together into a mess of dresses and limbs.

Martin shifted through the pile. Sorrow tore at his heart as he beheld their faces. Some were frozen in horror, or confusion, or awe, but all were frozen, never to change.

Save for one. If he proved to be fast enough. If he proved to be lucky enough.

He untangled Audrey Lewis. She drifted before him, as thin and fragile as a wet paper doll.

“When I tell you to, you will return this one.”

Martin waved his hand. The colors returned.

The shimmer expanded. Sparks of light drifted across the colored shards like a whirlwind filled with motes of fires. The sparks brushed against every shard, leaving some behind to linger as the rest moved to the corners of infinity.

She filled herself. She felt herself.

The bargain was made.

“We’ll both be happy from now on, so long as you obey me.”

Martin took his leave.

“Caosgon.”

Instantly upon his return to physical reality, Martin was greeted by pain–vibrant, pure, pain that blazed through his body like a fire. His battle with Bloody Mary created feedback on his body he could not detect until his physical senses returned.

The pain was so great that it could have killed a normal man, but with a thought, Martin dulled his nerves. Pain was something he had absolute control over along with his thoughts, heartbeat, and breathing.

But more concerning than the pain was what Martin saw when he looked at himself. He saw something that couldn’t be shown in the mirror. Black manifestations pierced his body like pieces of broken glass. He was covered in jagged blades and each one signaled a wound upon his mind. It was as if a giant had thrown him through a pane of black glass, and then another one, and then another one.

He could not determine the extent of the damage to his mind as he was now, or if any of the damage could be reversible. These wounds could be shallow, or they could be deep.

What did his battle cost him? Permanent neurological damage? Forgotten memories? He could not know.

“It doesn’t matter.” Martin muttered.

He reached for his glasses and tapped the left lens.

“Nothoa.”

To Martin’s Astral eyes, the lens darkened, then returned to its transparency, marking the binding of Bloody Mary.

He placed the glasses on his face. “Now I’ll always be able to keep an eye on you.”

Then he summoned his dogs, both to hold him up, because he felt he might fall down if he had to walk, and because he knew time was of the essence.

Martin commanded his dogs to push him through the house like a gust of wind. Joseph and Martin barely had time to realize he was there before he was past them and into the room, and certainly didn’t have time for the olprt radiance of Matthew’s gaeite candle to reveal the shards sticking in his body. Dr. Johns and Audrey’s parents didn’t notice Martin at all until he was by the girl’s bedside.

‘Where did you come from? Mr. Lewis asked.

“You’re too late, and goddamn you for it.” Mrs. Lewis said.

“I’m sorry, Dr. Glass, but she’s passing now. Her heart just stopped.” Dr. Johns said.

With his Astral sight, Martin saw that Audrey’s soul floated above her like a black mist. It no longer touched her. It no longer had her shape.

He feared, for a moment, that he was truly too late, and that all his struggles had been for nothing.

But then he saw gray strands linking the cloud to Audrey’s body and knew that all was not lost, not yet.

“Her heart shall beat again.” Martin vowed.

Martin knew that this part would be hard, but not as hard as what had come before. He had her reflection, and some idea of how to restore it. He had seen thaumaturgists decouple from their souls without perishing as they completed the Abramelin Operation. This was that but in reverse. Instead of unbinding a soul, this was fortifying its bonds.

He pulled back an eyelid. Sight was the mechanism by which her reflection was stolen and would be the mechanism by which it would be returned.

Gently, very gently, he rolled back her eyeball so that it gazed lifelessly up at him.

He sent a mental command to Bloody Mary to release her reflection, and Bloody Mary obeyed. His left lens flashed as dark as an opal, and then it cleared.

Martin looked at the reflective surface of his gaeite candle and found Audrey’s reflection was restored. But it would be the reflection of a corpse if not integrated with her body and soul.

Martin touched Audrey’s hand, already bereft of bodily temperature, with his own, and with his other, he touched one of the gray, gossamer strands that linked Audrey’s corpse to her soul.

“Trof Vgear.”

“Oh god, what is he doing?” Mrs. Lewis sobbed. Fresh tears streamed down the thoroughly moistened currents of her wrinkled face. “He’s pinching the air and mumbling nonsense! Someone stop him! Just let my baby die in peace!”

“Etharzi.”

Suddenly, Mrs. Lewis didn’t feel afraid, or worried, or concerned.

She couldn’t explain why a wave of pure calm washed over her, but she felt it wash the anxiety from her soul.

She looked at the manesologist standing over her daughter with dry eyes and found that, somehow, she could trust him.

Martin smiled. He saw what he had hoped to see and it was proof that his spells were working. Audrey’s reflection appeared in the form of a little gray shadow that covered her like a blanket. This was the odic-biological membrane upon which her vitality depended.

But it was not doing its job. Audrey’s soul remained at the very cusp of decoupling. The membrane had been replaced, but was not functioning.

Martin suddenly remembered something that had occurred to him before he studied manesology, before he studied thaumaturgy, before he studied anything. When he was a boy, the family dog had birthed a stillborn as part of her first litter. His father took the motionless thing in his hands and touched it, rubbed it, prayed over it, and a mewling puppy crawled off his palm and returned to its mother’s side. It was the first miracle he had ever seen, and he always strived to perform miracles like it.

Perhaps if he coaxed the membrane, if he used just a little force…

“Carbaf Amipzi.”

Martin pulled on the ectoplasmic string, very, very gently. He thought of a time he was walking Curant Street, back in Blackwall, and found a little boy crying. The boy had accidentally let go of his toy balloon and it floated high in the sky above his head. Martin summoned his dogs and had them push the balloon down until he could grab the string and hand it back to the boy, who, being young enough to assume that adults were innately magical and could do anything, did not ask how Martin had brought down his balloon and simply thanked him.

He had pinched the string of that balloon exactly like he now pinched the ectoplasmic string.

“Carbaf Amipzi,” Martin repeated.

And then Martin saw, to his great relief, that the dark cloud floating above Audrey began to brighten and thin just as the strings darkened. The direction of the soul had reversed. It now pulled itself back down into Audrey’s body. In moments, the cloud dissipated, and Audrey’s soul was concentrated in the black strings which stood rigidly upon Audrey’s gray membrane like needles. Martin was reminded of the ancient Chinese art of acupuncture, in which small needles were driven into the body at points purported to mark the flow of life energy within the body. Acupuncture, like many arts of the ancient world, wasn’t science, but had more truth in it than people realized.

Soon, the cloud vanished and the needle-like strings sank into Audrey’s body. The death shadow returned to her and she appeared as a black silhouette. Martin had rolled back the damage to what it was hours ago. He had transformed a dead girl into one that was merely dying. Now, if he could only produce a spark of vitality, just a spark…

Martin took both her cold hands and held them between his own.

“Apila.”

Audrey’s pupils flexed.

There, at last, in those brown eyes, was a spark of life.

Now, Martin just needed to fan that spark.

Martin removed his glasses and gazed into Audrey’s eyes.

“Apila!” Martin urged. “Apila!”

He squeezed the girl’s hand.

“Apila!”

Suddenly, the death shadow vanished from Audrey. Her soul returned, bound itself beneath her skin, and life returned to Audrey Lewis.

Audrey jerked and spasmed as life returned to her limbs. Her body drank of the life-giving air. She inhaled, and coughed, and wheezed, and when she had enough sense to know she was awake, she sobbed, for she knew that she had escaped Bloody Mary through a miracle.

“Ha ha! Yes! Yes!” Martin exclaimed. Tears trickled down his monkshood eyes.

Audrey looked up and saw a strange man with purple eyes standing over her. She knew not who he was, but she recognized her bedroom, and she recognized a warm smile and tears of happiness.

“Audrey, can you hear me?” Martin asked.

Audrey sniffled. “I…I want my momma…”

“She’s here, darling, she’s here! Your mother’s right here!” Martin waved for Audrey’s parents to come over, then quickly moved one of his hands from Audrey’s own and restored his glasses to his face. He had nearly forgotten to do that.

“Audrey! Oh, Audrey!” Mrs. Lewis nearly shoved Martin aside, reaching for her daughter. She held her close, as if she was the only piece of driftwood in a storm-tossed sea.

Audrey sobbed. “Momma!” she cried as she hugged her mother. “Momma!”

“Dr. Glass…” Mr. Lewis said.

‘Yes?”

Mr. Lewis’ mouth hung open. He wanted to say something, but had no idea what.

Martin smiled and gestured to Audrey and her mother.

Mr. Lewis made a sound in his mouth, then quickly said “Thank you.” before rushing over to his family.

Mr. Lewis held his family close. They were, at last, safe. They were all safe.

Dr. Johns gazed blankly at Martin. “I don’t understand,” he said. “You resurrected her. You brought her back from the dead. I didn’t think you could do that.”

“I didn’t think I could either. But I did. I just barely did it, but I did, didn’t I?”

Martin looked at the Lewis family embracing as one and smiled.

“This is the greatest victory that can be seen.” Martin said.

He placed an arm around Dr. Johns’ shoulder. “Look at what we’ve won, Dr. Johns.”

“I did nothing.” Dr. Johns said.

“Incorrect. You did all that you could, which is exactly what I have done. Come, let’s leave them to be happy, they deserve it.”

Martin led Dr. Johns out of the room and commanded one of his dogs to close the door behind them. They stepped into the silvery-white olprt radiance of Matthew’s gaeite candle and saw the two other members of Ernst, Morton, and Glass looking Martin up and down.

‘He saved her.” Dr. Johns said. “I don’t know how he did it, I can’t know how he did it, but he just…appeared in the room and he said some things and did some things with his hands and she’s fine now, she’s perfectly fine. You can hear her crying with her parents.”

“That’s our magic man.” Joseph said. “He’s full of surprises like that.”

Joseph crossed his arms and looked at Maritn. “Alright, boy, you can start explaining. Matthew and I are about as in the dark on this as Dr. Johns. You went outside. That’s where you left us. What happened?”

“I found the courage to do what I should have done when we first figured out the mirrors were interfering with our gaeite candles. I used thaumaturgy. My guess that the light within olprt radiance being reflected by the mirrors weakened our Operations was right. But through thaumaturgy, I could act upon her with just my will, and there’s no light in willpower, no physical component to be reflected at all. I wrestled Audrey’s reflection and the reflections of several other unfortunate girls away from Bloody Mary. Then I returned Audrey’s reflection. That restored her Odic-biological membrane. And now she’s well. Everything is okay.”

“You used your very mind? To fight a ghost alone?” Joseph asked.

“Yes.”

“You can do that?”

“Not without difficulty, obviously.”

“Damn you and your surprises, magic man. One day you might share them all with us. So you set your very mind on fire to burn as a gaeite candle? Did it hurt?”

“Oh, considerably.”

“Good. Maybe it’s taught you not to do something so stupid again. We’re lucky that we aren’t talking to your ghost right tnow”

Martin smiled.

“Oh, don’t you smile like an idiot.” Joseph said. “This is serious stuff, boy. You could have died and left Matthew and myself to pick what was left of you out of Bloody Mary’s teeth.”

“I know.” Martin said. “I’m sorry. I just thought of something funny, something funny to me. My mind is all abuzz with thoughts.”

“And just what’s so funny about what you’re thinking?” Joseph asked.

“The way I reattached her reflection and fastened her soul back to her body. Well, from my perspective, it felt a little like giving a child back his balloon. Her soul was above her body, attached by the thinnest strands of ectoplasm you’ve ever seen, and I grabbed one and just, well, pulled it back down.”

Joseph smiled. “You know what? That is a rather amusing thought.”

“I would swear you were all insane.” Dr. Johns said. “But you do things I’ve only read about in scripture, so you can’t be insane. You just sound insane. I’m sorry if that sounds rude, but it’s how I honestly feel about you all right now, and if Dr. Glass can talk about balloons and souls, I think I should be able to talk about what I feel.”

“It’s not a problem.” Joseph said. “Sometimes, I think we’re insane too. Right now, I’m pretty sure Dr. Glass had a spot of madness, because going off to fight Bloody Mary without letting us know was stupid to the point of madness.”

“We didn’t even hear you come in.” Matthew said to Martin. “You must have done that thing where you use your dogs to move without a sound.”

“Yes.” Martin admitted.

“You really didn’t want us to know. Why?” Joseph asked.

“Because before I found my courage, I had to fight myself over it. I weighed Audrey’s life against my own, and the lives of all those I could possibly save in the future, including yours.”

“Including Matthew and myself?” Joseph asked.

“Yes and don’t you try and deny that I had to put you in the calculation.”Martin said. “I’ve saved you and Matthew before and I’ll likely have to save you both in the years to come–you especially. Do you remember the Ballard Hall case? I thought we had lost you in that airless chamber.”

“What? Have you been keeping score? Are you going to bill me one day for all the times you’ve saved my old carcass?” Joseph asked.

“No, I haven’t kept score, don’t be ridiculous, old man. But I knew if I saw you on my way to confront Bloody Mary, if you had said something to me, I might have stopped and turned back, out of fear that one day something would happen to you or Matthew and I wouldn’t be there to save you.”

“Matthew and I were manesologists before we ever met you, boy.” Joseph said. “We made our agreement with the Ror Raas to devote our lives to being intermediaries between ghosts and men. That’s our lives in total, boy. If it means we use them up completely, so be it.”

Matthew nodded in agreement.

“One day we’ll all probably die at the hands of some specter.” Joseph said. “I understand the decision you made was hard. I understand you having to weigh the lives you could save in the future against the life you could save in the present. But the next time you do moral calculus like that, don’t include me and Matthew. Factor our lives as zero.”

“I can’t do that.”

“If you care about truth and honesty, you will.” Joseph said. “Our lives are not your life, boy. Use our lives as justification for going behind your partners’ backs again and I’ll break those big glasses of yours.”

“Say I told you two my plan. What difference would it have made?”

“Lord, you really have gotten a touch of madness, haven’t you?” Joseph asked. “What difference would it have made? Golly, boy, I don’t know. What’s the difference between talking to your partners and not talking to your partners?”

“Would you two have fought alongside me? Of course you wouldn’t have. You couldn’t have.”

“This isn’t about whether or not we could have fought Bloody Mary with you. We could have been crippled and bedridden, that still wouldn’t have given you the right to leave us out of your plans. We could have advised you, planned with you…”

Martin shook his head. “This is just another case of the sacrifice of Odin. I could not think of a way to talk to you about what I had to do, what only I could do…”

“Oh, and here comes your magic man bit.” Joseph said. “Strange how you never consider yourself one until you find it advantageous. Don’t act like the problem was that you’re so high and above everything.What you did wasn’t because of your special magic strength, it was because of your own inner weakness.”

“Martin, were you afraid that we would have told you not to fight Bloody Mary?” Matthew asked.

“I…I didn’t know what you would say. That’s why I didn’t risk speaking to you.” Martin said.

“Were you afraid that you would have wanted us to stop you?” Matthew asked.

Martin hung his head. “Perhaps…yes.”

“Then that’s a weakness on your part.” Matthew said. “And it isn’t right that you blame your weakness on Joseph and I. We are your partners, Martin. Do not ever be afraid of what we might tell you. If there’s a lack of trust between us, we are unbound from each other, and in our individuality, vulnerable.”

Martin nodded. “I am sorry, Joseph, Mathew. I see that now. I was blind and not in the way I thought I was. The fault here was with me.”

“In your case, you made yourself very vulnerable going behind our backs.” Joseph said. “It looks like Bloody Mary skinned you alive with several knives and left them stuck in you.”

Dr. Johns looked at Martin.

And he saw that Martin, in the olprt radiance, was covered in black, jagged shards.

The shards pierced up and down his body. They covered his arms, on his legs, and even his face. One bisected his eye.

Dr. Johns sprang back. He took a deep breath and was about to scream, but he eyed the door and remembered the family behind it and covered his mouth with his hands.

“It’s worse than it looks.” Martin said. “Really.”

Matthew switched off his gaeite candle. As the silvery-white light vanished, so too did the black shards seemingly piercing Martin’s skin.

“I’m sorry.” Matthew said. “I thought you might have seen it already.”

“Of course I haven’t seen it already!” Dr. Johns said. “Why would I be touching him if I saw that?”

Dr. Johns looked down at his body and tried to see if he was pierced anywhere.

“I’m sorry.” Matthew repeated. “There’s nothing to fear from them. They’re purely mental manifestations. I thought that would be obvious to you.”

“If they’re just mental manifestations, then does that mean they could have pierced my mind?”

“No.” Matthew said. “It’s perfectly safe to touch him.”

Martin smiled and extended his hand to Dr. Johns.

Dr. Johns gingerly reached for the hand, but remembered those sharp, pointed shards, and recoiled.

“That’s alright.” Martin said.

“Dr. Johns, I’m sorry if we gave you a little fright.” Joseph said. “As manesologists, frightening people is the last thing we want to do. Just as sometimes what appears as very intuitive and obvious to Dr. Glass doesn’t appear that way to us, sometimes what appears to us as intuitive and obvious doesn’t appear so to laymen.”

“What was that though?” Dr. Johns asked. “It looked like a whirlwind of broken glass blew through him!”

“Wounds.” Martin explained. “Battle wounds. They’re partly from Bloody Mary and partly because I used myself as a gaeite candle. I overexerted myself. Think of it as breaking a bone or pulling a muscle.”

“You don’t seem to act wounded.” Dr. Johns said.

“LIke I said, it looks worse than it actually is.” Martin looked down at himself. Though Dr. Johns couldn’t see the shards without the olprt radiance, he could. “These are like…dueling scars.”

“Oh, proud of them now, are you?” Joseph asked.

“No. But I’m going to have them for awhile, so I figure I might as well enjoy having them.”

“I’m concerned that the wounds might be graver than you think.” Matthew said. “Not too much graver, but still. Martin, could you summon your dogs and condense them? Make them like a tight fist.”

“I see what you’re getting out.” Martin said. “I’ll do that right now and–ahhhhh.” Martin groaned and massaged his temple.

“I feared this.” Matthew said.

“I expected this.” Joseph said. “Boy, did you really think you could take down that ghost by yourself with only a few odd manifestations clinging to your mind?”

“I’ll just have to hold off on using my dogs too much.” Martin said. “They can move me around and close doors, but I don’t think I’ll be squeezing coal into diamonds anytime soon.”

Dr. Johns blinked. He didn’t see Martin do anything. He just talked, and then he had a headache.

“I understand none of this.” Dr. Johns said. “I feel as if I’ve gone from out of a nightmare into a very strange daydream.”

“When I was in the bathroom fighting Bloody Mary, I saw that the Lewis family kept a bottle of laudanum. I don’t think they would mind if you took a few drops.”

“I’m not going in that bathroom.” Dr. Johns said. “Bloody Mary could be dead, bound, destroyed, whatever, I’m not going in there.”

“Speaking of Bloody Mary, how did your confrontation with her play out?”

“I used the mirror in the bathroom to summon and hold her.” Martin explained. “But she fought back. Considerably so. She tried to do to me what she did to Audrey and so many others.”

“Others?” Joseph asked.

“Others. She attacked me psychically. My mind joined with hers and I saw inside her. She has a collection of reflections.”

“How many?” Joseph asked.

“Six, not counting Audrey’s own.”

“Is there any way we can return those reflections? Obviously it’s too late to save anyone’s life, but we could bring closure to some families.”

“It should be possible. She obeys me now. It’s how I got her to restore Audrey’s reflection. I can get her to show the reflections on glass and from there it’s just a matter of finding a list of young women who perished under sudden and inexplicable fevers.”

“It’s awful to know she killed six more girls.” Dr. Johns said. “But on the other hand, it’s good to know she never will again. Who was she, though? Who was Bloody Mary?”

“She was what we call a fetch, a manes that believes herself to be a legendary or mythological figure. Do you remember the Knocker of the Huskar Pit?”

“I think I remember reading about him in Illustrated Phantom Stories.” Dr. Johns said.

“The Knocker was a young man named Alan. Because the spiritual component that controls memories and behaviors preserved from life was weak in him, and because the spiritual component that controls novel behaviors and the component that controls a manes’ innate link with the collective thoughts of mankind were both strong in him, Alan believed himself a knocker, a kind of fairy that protects miners by knocking on the walls of mines to warn of cave-ins and disasters. He retained just enough of his memories to know that he wanted to protect his fellow miners, but not enough to know that he was once a human. He filled in the blanks with stories of knockers. Bloody Mary likewise maintained only a faint recollection of herself, whoever she might have been. She knew only that she was once a young woman but was now a manes, and one whose living body left only a poor impression. In that way, she was also a type of manes we call a wisp.”

“I know what one of those are.” Dr. Johns said. “They look like balls of light, or puffs of smoke.”

“In Bloody Mary’s case, like a glare of light. She longed to look again like a woman, and to that end used her strong connection to mankind’s interconnected thoughts. She used that connection to reach out to young women who gazed long and hard into mirrors and asked to see a ghost. She saw their reflections and wanted them for herself. She collected them like clothes, but none of them satisfied her for long. None of them fit her. But she’s satisfied now. She’s a tamed animal on an unbreakable leash.”

“What did you do to her?” Dr. Johns asked.

“At first, I strengthened her component which controlled the memories of her life and her component which controlled the impression of the corporeal form. In doing this, I hoped that I could give her back her reflection. But those components were extremely weak–if only all of her components were just as weak, the fight with her wouldn’t have been so hard and I wouldn’t have ended up a pincushion. It’s a rule of manesology, you see. All spiritual components can be weakened to next-to-nothing, but they can only be strengthened to a certain extent past their natural strength. So with giving Bloody Mary back her old looks off the table, I shattered her.”

“You did what?” Dr. Johns asked.

“Refracted is probably a better word for it. I refracted her, like light through a prism. Optics were on my mind, so I just applied a little creativity. She is now an endless array of reflections. She has an infinite number of clothes to try on. She’ll never be done, never be fulfilled, but she doesn’t mind. She’s like a hasher with an endless supply of opium, and to control her, all I have to do is threaten to take it away.”

“And where did you affix her?” Joseph asked. “Did you affix her to one of the crucifixes?”

Ernst, Morton, and Glass always carried small crucifixes on their persons to affix ghosts. Through the Nothoa Operation, they could affix ghosts to any material, or even to a point in space, but found affixing them to crucifixes to be both practical and respectful.

“No. She likes mirrors. She’s fully absorbed into being Bloody Mary. So I put her in the left lens of my glasses.”

Dr. Johns gazed into the lens and tried to see anything besides Martin’s blue eye.

“You won’t be able to see her.” Martin said. “But rest assured she’s there. She’s going to be there forever.”

“I never thought we’d be able to add Bloody Mary to our list of helper ghosts.” Joseph said. “Though I’m not sure how much help a little murderess like her is going to be.”

“She’ll be a great help if we ever want someone dead.” Martin said.

“No. Other manes are better at that.” Matthew said. “She’s only useful if we want someone to die relatively slowly and in such a way that looks like a disease.”

Martin smirked. “Well, you never know…”

“I think I might actually have that laudanum after all.” Dr. Johns said.

“Nothing wrong with a little pick-me-up.” Joseph said.

“Do you have any more questions for us, Dr. Johns?” Matthew asked. “Because with the girl safe and Bloody Mary affixed, we should be on our way if there isn’t.”

“I feel as if I should have questions. But no. No, I don’t have any more questions.” Dr. Johns replied.

“Then take care, Dr. Johns.” Joseph said. The giant then shook his hand, and Dr. Johns felt as if he was a child shaking a grown man’s hand. Martin and Matthew then took their turns shaking his hand, though for the life of him Dr. Johns couldn’t understand why they wanted to.

“Dr. Johns, please tell the Lewis family that we’re very happy for them, and that if they have any questions they should not hesitate to send us an electrogram, though it may take us some time to answer now that their case is not critical.” Matthew said.

“I will.” Dr. Johns said. “And then I think I’ll sleep for a few days.”

“Rest well.” Martin said.

The manesologists turned to leave, and Dr. Johns began to form a syllable on his lips, though he wasn’t sure for a moment if he wanted to let it fly.

“JJJJJJJJust one more thing!” Dr. Johns exclaimed.

The manesologists stopped and turned.

“Dr. Glass, I know I will dream about this day for a long, long time, possibly for the rest of my life. When I see you in my dreams, will it be…just as a dream? Or will you actually be there?”

Martin smiled. “Would you like to see me in your dreams?”

“Honestly, no.” Dr. Johns said. “I struggle with the nightmares mundane life gives me. I mean no offense, Dr. Glass, but while I don’t think I would mind seeing you again in waking life, I don’t think I could stand seeing you while I sleep. I think I would cry.”

“Say no more.” Martin leaned close to Dr. John’s face. Martin lifted his dusky glasses, and for a moment, Dr.Johns thought he saw his eyes flash an inhuman purple, a purple like that of monkshood, but he decided that it must have been his imagination, for a moment Martin’s glasses were back on his face and his eyes were blue once more.

“What just happened?” Dr. Johns asked.

“I used a little mesmerism to make it so that you won’t have to worry about dreaming of this day.”

“Oh. Okay.” Dr. Johns said. Martin could have told him anything and he would have accepted it at this point. He could have told him that he turned his soul into cottage cheese, and Dr. Johns would have said “okay.”

“Boy, do you want to shred your mind apart?” Joseph snapped at Martin.

“That was just some mild mesmerism.” Martin said. “Nothing like real thaumaturgy”

“You shouldn’t be doing any mesmerism until we get all those shards out of your mind.” Joseph said. “You might have just lost a memory or two.”

“I don’t feel like I’ve lost a memory.”

“You mean you don’t remember losing a memory? That would be the point, you mad magic moron!”

“Let us to Whistle and his carriage.” Matthew said. He then turned to Dr. Johns. “It was good to work with you.”

“I did nothing.” Dr. Johns said. “I keep telling you people that, and you keep acting as if I’ve done something. It makes me think that I have done something, but I can’t think of what that something could possibly be.”

“That people do nothing can, in its own way, be helpful to us.” Matthew said. “Sometimes, human interference is more difficult for us to overcome than the supernatural power of manes.”

“I should go check on Audrey, now.” Dr. Johns said. “I’m sure she’s fine, but I should check on her nonetheless, shouldn’t I?”

“Go on.” Martin said.

Dr. Johns turned and walked back into the room. Audrey’s parents asked him a dozen questions and he could answer but one–that Audrey was truly well again. There was a loud whistling sound outside as the manesologists returned to Blackwall, and Dr. Johns found that he was left as a simple physician caring for a simple problem of badly frayed nerves.

With nothing more to be done, Dr. Johns recovered his black doctor’s bag from the corner of the room and took his leave.

Outside, night had fallen and the stars were out, and yet, somehow, it felt as if it were a bright and refreshing morning.

Martin would gradually recover from his injuries. Within a month, he regained full control over his dogs. Within two months, most of the shards had dissolved. But he would never lose all of his shards. Though they would become so faint so as to only reveal themselves at the most sensitive levels of olprt radiance, he would always have a few within the deepest parts of his mind. And when he became old and powerful and ascended to a state that his younger self could never have comprehended, he kept a single shard within his mind as a memento of his young life, for he had reached a state where such minor wounds within his mind had no effect upon his functioning.

Bloody Mary would remain a rarely-used secret weapon in the left lens of Martin’s glasses for all the years Ernst, Morton, and Glass remained in operation. Through study of Bloody Mary’s ability to steal reflections, mankind’s understanding of the Odic-biological membrane increased, and Dr. Ernst would publish a paper on the subject in 1868 titled Osmotic Action Between Body and Soul.

Following Martin’s retirement from manesology in 1905, he entrusted his glasses, which he no longer hid behind, to the care of American manesologist John Leeds, who would put the glasses in the New Jersey headquarters of the American Manesological Society where they remain to this day. Bloody Mary has been content to live inside her little glass, completely absorbed in the solipsistic study of herself from all reflections and all angles.

The weakness olprt radiance had against mirrors was investigated by the Ror Raas and corrected in 1868 by a thaumaturgical spell. From that moment on, olprt radiance suffused a mirror without being reflected by it. A mirror in a room full of olprt radiance would show the room without it, even if the room was pitch black, creating a strange optical effect where a lit room had a dark mirror.

The various reflections Bloody Mary had stolen were eventually returned to their corpses, and those that buried them gained closure from knowing how and why their loved ones took ill so suddenly and perished–and that it would never again happen to another girl. Most reflections, once identified, were easily returned, but a few created cases of their own through unexpected complications–but these stories are for another time.

Who Bloody Mary was in life was never uncovered and her identity remains a mystery to this day.