Solomon Ch. 8

Solomon: Chapter 8

NOTE: THIS CHAPTER HAS UNDERGONE REVISION AND EXPANSION SINCE IT FIRST APPEARED. IF YOU READ THE FIRST VERSION OF THIS CHAPTER, YOU WILL LIKELY WANT TO REREAD THIS ONE.

Silver thought about his next choice carefully. After about a minute of deliberations, he slowly began to speak.
"I think I know who to go to next," he said. "But I need to do this one alone."
They had sort of been meandering in the general direction of Aidan and Felicity's house, mostly out of a strong desire to put distance between themselves and Frost's apartment.
Felicity was inquisitive. "Why must you go alone, Silver?"
"It'd be better," answered Jacob, "if he didn't say."
Felicity nodded sagely. The four of them had reached the house. The little Fateweaver took Aidan's hand and pulled him towards the front door. "C'mon big brother, let's go."
Jacob and Silver watched the door close, then began walking away from the house, South, which would take both of them to their intended destinations.
Jacob quietly to Silver without turning to face him. "So. You're going to talk to Vivian, then?"
Silver's answer was equally subdued. "Yeah."
"You sure you want to go alone? No backup?"
"Yeah. I trust her."
"Okay."
Silver had lost completely the cheery disposition that was normally his most defining characteristic. He was completely serious. It was a strange contrast for most of his acquaintances, but Jacob had seen the boy like this before, though it was rare.
Now it was Silver's turn to ask a question. "You gonna need any backup for your part?"
Jacob shook his head. "I've got to do this one alone, too."
Silver turned his head to look at Jacob. "Who is it?"
Jacob made eye contact with his friend. "Mort."
Silver nodded. "Of course. You sure you're gonna be okay if things go South?"
"They won't," Jacob said immediately. "But even if they do, I think I can handle it. I've got a few new tricks up my sleeve."
Silver smiled and rolled his eyes. "Don't I know it."
They came to the point where their paths diverged. Jacob sighed and smiled at Silver. "Good luck, to both of us."
Silver grinned at him. "I think, with Felicity on our side, that goes without saying."
Jacob grinned back at him. "True."
Both of them laughed for a few seconds, but soon their laughter faded. They turned wordlessly and headed in opposite directions.
Jacob had to walk for another thirty minutes before he reached Mort's home. Mort had done well for himself. He lived in a rather large two- story deal, all bricks and no- nonsense architecture. Like most magicians' homes, it was unusual in that it had sparse and small fenestration. Large windows and more windows meant more points of entry, which meant less security.
Jacob stepped up and knocked on the door. It was opened by a rotting man.
Jacob was halfway through a destructive incantation when he realized it was wearing a fresh and clean tuxedo. He aborted the spell and sighed.
"Ungh?" asked the zombie.
"I'm here for Mort."
"Uhnh?" it inquired.
"No, I don't have an appointment," responded Jacob, indignantly. "I'm an old friend."
"Unh." The butler closed the door and Jacob heard it shamble off to talk to Mort. Jacob sighed. He questioned the wisdom of an undead doorman. He heard footsteps and soon the door opened once more, this time revealing Mort.
Mort was twenty- five. He, like Jacob, favored dark grays in his clothing palette. Unlike Jacob, Mort was wealthy enough to never wear a tie. Mort's sandy hair and gray- blue eyes fell well outside of the the stereotype of the dark, brooding Necromancer. Mort's face lit up with a smile when he saw the demonologist.
"Jacob!" he exclaimed, extending a hand. "Good to see you!"
Jacob cringed at the use of his real name, but he forced his features into a smile as he shook Mort's hand.
"Mort," he said as means of greeting. Mort ushered him in. Jacob hung his jacket and hat up on the rack by the door.
"By the way Mort, do you really think it's a good idea to have a zombie answering the door? What if I'd been the mailman or something?"
Mort shrugged as he led Jacob through the house. "Then you wouldn't have been able to tell he was a zombie."
Oh, right. Sometimes Jacob forgot how apt the designation "unaware" was.
But still, he was reluctant to cede the point. "Yeah, okay," he allowed. "But what if I had been aware and ignorant? Also squeamish."
Mort turned his palms skyward in a universal gesture of exasperation while saying "I would have killed you. Look, Jacob, what's the big deal?"
Jacob couldn't really argue with that logic. The name thing had to stop though.
"Mort, you need to start calling me Solomon."
By now they had reached Mort's study. Mort sat in a comfortable recliner and gestured to one set up near it for easy conversation. "Have a seat." Jacob sat. "Now why must I call you Solomon? I understand you don't want your name common knowledge and I'll call you by your pseudonym in public. But in private, I'd like to call you by your proper name."
Jacob shook his head. "That's not going to work. You need to be in the habit so that my name doesn't slip out accidentally."
Mort rolled his eyes. "Get to the point. Why are you here?"
Why was everyone in such a hurry? Jacob never got to just skirt around the issue for hours at a time the way he planned to.
"Silver and I," he said. "We're forming a cabal. Seven magicians. We've got five already and he and I are both working on the last two right now. You being one of those two, of course."
"Of course," said Mort.
"Are you interested?"
Mort stood and began pacing the room. "You know you're asking for a lot, don't you?" He increased his pacing speed, talking not quite to himself and not quite to Jacob, but a bit of both. "On the one hand, there's no denying the power and convenience. Without even knowing any of your other members, I'm half tempted to say yes immediately just because of how useful it would be to have a pact with a Reflector."
Jacob sat silently, leaning forward in his chair, elbows on his knees, chin in his hands, eyes tracking Mort as he moved back and forth across the room.
"On the other hand," mused Mort. "There's the larger factions to consider. Especially the Baron. Any of them might try to have us killed. Of course, they'll have very little chance of succeeding once the pact is forged. When would you be carrying out the ceremony?"
Jacob spoke without moving more than his mouth. "As soon as possible. Tonight, if I have my way."
Mort nodded. "You've been swift about this?" He inquired.
"We started yesterday."
Mort whistled. "I've got to hand it to you, you're going about this in the right way."
"Thank you."
"Who else?"
Jacob rattled them off one by one. "Myself, Silver, Lucinda. We've got a Pyro named Aidan and his little sister, a Fateweaver called Felicity who will be casting the pact. They're both kids, but I've seen then in action. They're more than competent. Silver's working on recruiting Vivian right now. And I'm trying to win you over."
"The risks are still very great, Jacob. Even after the Cabal has been bound to a pact, we will be a target for a time. An object of hatred."
Jacob shook his head. "I know that. But you have to do this. You owe me. I wasn't gonna call this in, but I have to. Adam's dead and I need this to come together today." After a beat he added "and stop calling me Jacob."
Mort stopped in his tracks. "Adam's dead? How?"
"Demon got loose. I dealt with it."
Mort snorted. "You took care of a demon that killed Adam?"
Jacob bristled. "You're acting very inappropriately towards the man who saved your life not once, but twice in as many years."
Mort was silent. At length he responded. "I'm a man of action. You know that. I'll join the cabal. But first you have to pass my test."
Jacob was indignant at this point. How could Mort be such an ungrateful ass? Money had made him too arrogant.
"Fine," was all Jacob said. "But if I pass you join and you stop calling me Jacob. Got it?"
Mort nodded. Jacob didn't have to ask what would happen if he didn't pass the test, but he did anyway.
"If I don't pass. . ?"
Mort grinned at him. "You'll be joining my staff."
Jacob failed to suppress a shudder.
"Let's get started," said Mort, climbing a spiral staircase in the study/library. He continued from his relatively safe vantage point. "Your objective is to survive for five minutes or until I run out of things to throw at you."
Jacob's expression hardened, but he was smiling. Despite himself he was looking forward to this. He hadn't had a chance to really put Alastor's weapon through its paces yet. "Do your worst."
And it began. The maid was the first to come at Jacob. The butler was standing in the doorway, holding a tray with a white cloth over it. He pulled off the cloth to reveal a variety of weapons. The maidservant grabbed a wickedly barbed and very sharp dagger and rushed towards Jacob with speed that was all the more surprising given her deceased condition.
Jacob smirked and suddenly his eyes were alive with Hellfire as the burning axe appeared in his hands. He brought the enormous weapon down, contacting the dagger with a clank! The maid ducked and weaved, trying to get inside of Jacob's guard. Alastor's spirit was strong and use of the axe came naturally to Jacob, who had no problem utilizing the entire weapon, haft and blade. Try as she might, the maid could not penetrate Jacob's defenses. Finally, Jacob caught one of her strikes in the inner curve of the blade and twisted it from her grasp, wrenching free the entire hand at the wrist.
Wasting no time, Jacob thrust the axe deep into the zombie's abdomen. Flames flooded her body, escaping her mouth along with her final screams as she was incinerated from the inside out.
Next up was the cook. Already holding an oversized cleaver in his right hand as he dashed in from the kitchen. The sight of a skeleton dressed in a chef's coat and hat snatching a hatchet from a silver plate as he rushed past the butler was a strange one, to be sure. The chef flung the cleaver directly at Jacob, who ducked to the side just in time for it to whiz past his head and embed in one of the bookshelves. Without pausing, the chef transferred the hatchet to his right hand and began a relentless attack on Jacob. The chef was just as quick as the maid, but he had a little more power and a little less finesse. The handaxe he was using had an extended blade on the bottom, giving the head of the hatchet a way to hook and hold an enemy's weapon. It would have been a much better tactical advantage if Jacob had been using a sword or a dagger instead of a huge executioner's axe.
While still in the middle of fending off the chef, another undead house servant joined the fray. This one was another zombie, rotting flesh stretched tight across occasionally exposed bone, and had been of slight build in life. It snatched an ornate steel mace, the flanges gleaming menacingly in the dim light of Mort's study.
You've got to be kidding me, thought Jacob. This is just ridiculous.
Now he was fighting with both ends of the weapon. Continuously moving so that his back was never to either assailant, Jacob used the long haft of the axe to block one servant and the head to hold off the other. Which was assigned to which was constantly shifting as the agile undead danced deadly circles around him.
This wasn't going to work. Individually, Jacob could have dealt with either of these and he could hold them off for a while, but probably not the remainder of the five minutes. After all, he got tired; they didn't. It was time to change tactics. Jacob could feel a plan suddenly crystallize in his mind. He knew it must have come from Alastor, but he didn't really care. It was a good plan.
Jacob ducked low as the axe vanished from his grip. He howled in pain with Alastor's voice as red-hot iron talons erupted from his fingertips. Now free to be considerably more mobile, Jacob renewed his onslaught, catching, deflecting, attacking. Finally, the moment he'd waited for came. The mace- wielding zombie was behind him, the skeletal chef in front. The zombie raised its weapon and brought it speeding down. Jacob sidestepped at the last moment. The flanged head obliterated the chef's skull while Jacob simultaneously thrust his claws into the zombie's heart and head.
The chef collapsed into a disjointed pile of bones and the zombie slid from his burning claws and landed on the carpet with a wet thump.
The gardener entered the doorway, almost comical with his half- fleshless face and wielding a razor- sharp hoe with both hands. Jacob dissolved the talons on his right hand as the axe reappeared there, but kept them on his left. The claws hurt, in fact every second with them was pure agony, but their effectiveness and utility were undeniable.
"ENOUGH!" Mort bellowed. The gardener immediately reduced speed and coordination to a shamble and started making his way back into the gardens. The butler bowed, covered up the weapons once more, and headed back into the kitchen.
Jacob sneered at Mort, eyes still bellowing smoke and Hellfire, axe ablaze. "That's all? Come on, Mort. I thought you had a few more disposable soldiers than that."
Mort stared at Jacob in disbelief. "I saw no reason to continue when you had clearly won my challenge already."
"So you're in?" Jacob was grinning, fire visible in his mouth. It was a fully terrifying sight.
Mort nodded. "My services are at your disposal, Solomon."
Damn right, thought Jacob.
"But first," said Mort, coming back down the spiral staircase. "Let's talk about that Axe."

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