Birth of Chaos Read online

  After a moment of awkwardness began to stretch and pull between them, Wayne settled back in his chair with a huff, the sound shattering the tension at once. He crossed his arms over his chest and frowned; if it weren’t for the situation, Jo probably would have laughed at the theatrics.

  “Sammy’s right,” he said, drumming his fingers along the crook of his elbow. Samson tilted his head slightly at the sudden use of a new name for him. “We’ve served our time. Some of us more than others, but time nonetheless. We might not like what we’re doing—hell I’d take the Great Depression all over again if it meant avoiding all this . . .But . . . But I’d fancy a guess I’m not alone in saying we’d like losing another one of our own even less.”

  This time, when a renewed quiet settled in, it was almost reverent, the group as a whole balancing Wayne’s words with Samson’s with whatever else had gone unsaid. For Jo, she couldn’t help feeling as though she hadn’t served enough time, maybe. And yet, at the prospect of spending eternity balanced on the razor’s edge of a second demise, Jo couldn’t help but agree with Wayne.

  “We’re survivors,” Takako murmured.

  It was all they could do, survive. For their own sake, for each other’s. Jo liked to think it was what Nico would have wanted, but it didn’t seem enough.

  “Aren’t we focusing on the wrong thing?” Jo looked to each of them as she spoke, looking for someone to meet her eyes and give her a glimmer of hope that there was someone else who thought as she did. That she wasn’t insane for all the thoughts that had been stirring in her mind following Nico’s death. “Even if we complete this unpalatable wish, what stops the next one from being worse?”

  “What are you saying?” Eslar was the one to ask.

  “I’m saying that we shouldn’t settle for being survivors. We have a room of magic here. We exist outside of time. Why not stop granting wishes?”

  “Doll, did you somehow forget about the whole part where if we stop granting wishes, we stop existing?”

  “Not in the slightest.” Jo shook her head. How was no one else thinking about this? “I don’t just mean stop. I mean . . . change the Society. Maybe there’s another way to get the magic instead of wishes? Some other ‘Plan B’ that we haven’t thought of.”

  “Jo,” Snow spoke up with a cautionary note.

  “Or put a stop to it altogether, if we can, and keep existing.” No one had an answer for her, because there wasn’t one. “Unless we change the Society itself, we’re nothing more than slaves, cattle, waiting for slaughter regardless of what Pan—”

  “The only thing that matters are the wishes, and keeping our team alive,” Snow interrupted harshly. Jo instantly regretted suggesting he stay. “There are no alternatives, Josephina.”

  She openly glared at Snow, and he met her stare. Tears fought against screams and stalemated into silence. Surely, he knew something that could help them. Why was he complacent to just sit on the sidelines? And if it was true, if he couldn’t help them, what circumstances had come to pass that had set them all on such a long, drawn-out suicide highway?

  “Right, Snow,” Eslar started again cautiously, as if waiting for Jo to object again. She sunk back into her chair, keeping her thoughts to herself . . . for now. “We should focus on the wish.”

  Assessing the situation was a fragile affair after that, as though everyone felt the subconscious need to watch their words, not sugar-coating, but definitely avoiding anything that could be intentionally antagonistic as well.

  “So, all of this is happening in United North America, right?” Takako pulled up the original photo of the bone in snow.

  “Yes,” Snow affirmed. With a wave of his hand, illuminated images spread across the table once more.

  “The latest incident seems to have been in Boston Harbor . . . Police there are investigating,” Wayne said.

  Jo continued to sit back in her chair, keeping her mouth shut. She couldn’t trust herself not to interject again, to point out how foolish the hamster wheel they were running on actually was.

  Eslar nodded, stood again, and leaned towards the video feed Snow had shown them earlier. He pointed toward the news station logo in the bottom left corner. “There’s reporting in the greater metro area.” With the swipe of a green-nailed finger, he pulled up a social media thread on the matter. “However, there are rumors of police activity in the small town of Rockport.”

  Takako stood, widening the map of the Bone Carver’s victims. “They must know something. These murders are all over the place. For the investigation to be narrowing down on such a small town . . .”

  “I’m guessing the Bone Carver lives there?” Jo asked quietly. If she was doing this, then she wanted more than these static photos and brief news reels. She wanted something concrete to sink her teeth into.

  Snow gave a final swipe of his hand with a grim nod. An address, a simple looking house, and a photograph of a man in a suit all pulled up together. It was a simple little bio, but not unlike what they had received for the first wish, and every wish after. They all stared at the face of their wisher, at the face of a killer. “This is the man who made the wish.”

  “Do the police have this information?” Takako asked.

  “I do not know,” Snow admitted, at least having the decency to look upset about it. He made a few final hand motions. Magic swirled in the table in a way that seemed random, but if Jo stared at it long enough, it was almost as if she, too, could make some sense of it. Every bit of information they’d been presented with appeared one after the next. “This is all I have been presented with.”

  “Why don’t we get more information when the wish comes in?” she asked their leader. “Why is it limited to only morsels every time? It’s like the system is designed to try to coax us into failure.”

  “This is how it’s always been,” Eslar answered for Snow, the protective note in his voice undeniable.

  Jo looked sidelong at the elf. “That’s not what I asked.”

  “I am only afforded a brief glimpse into the wisher’s current state of affairs when a wish is made.”

  “Why?”

  “This is how it’s always been.” Snow repeated Eslar’s words.

  “That’s not an answer,” Jo shot back, rephrasing her earlier protest.

  “If Snow could help us more, he would.” Eslar slammed a hand on the table and Jo jumped back in her seat. Less from the noise and more from seeing the elf emote so openly.

  “I don’t doubt that,” Jo said quietly, looking Eslar in the eye, and then Snow. “I don’t,” she added softly, just for him. She needed him to know that even if she was struggling with just about everything right now, she could afford him the benefit of the doubt. She believed in him, even if she knew that he was holding something back. “But I’m asking why it’s this way.”

  “What you should be asking is if you can go into the field and gather information yourself,” Eslar replied coolly. “We’re not going to get up-to-the-minute status on the police activity sitting here or looking online.”

  He had an odd idea of punishments (if that was his intent) because Jo couldn’t help but perk up at the prospect. Getting out of the mansion, gathering up actual intel with actual computers, looked a lot like freedom; the idea offered a boost of adrenaline straight into Jo’s veins. Perhaps it would be like Nico and Florence. Perhaps it would give her the new perspective she needed on the Society, looking at it from the outside.

  “Fine, I’m on it.” Jo stood, trying not to look so eager. She got the distinct impression that she wasn’t supposed to want to do this. “Where should I start? The police HQ in Boston? Or case Rockport in general?”

  Samson had already taken to pacing around the table, his fingers making intricate designs with a looped piece of string. “The police seem to be closing in on a few of his plausible locations. Even if the most recent murder was in Boston proper, I’d go with Rockport.”

  Eslar got to his feet as well. “I second Samson’s suggestion.” A fa
int blush seemed to dust the other man’s cheeks. “Time may not be on our side; the authorities seem to be moving quickly.” Eslar pulled out his watch, which prompted all of them to do the same. “We only received ten hours each for this wish, and two weeks total.”

  “Ten hours?” Wayne balked. “Hardly any time.”

  And who chose that amount? Jo bit back the question. Even if she wouldn’t voice them aloud, she would keep thinking them, letting them eat away at her until she could feed them answers.

  “All right. I’m going out to collect some information.” Jo’s legs were already leading her towards the Door with a keycode shimmering to form at the back of her head. “I’ll come back and regroup with what I find.”

  “Hold up there, dollface.” Wayne’s voice cut into her thoughts, and she had to will herself not to feel annoyed by the interruption. By the time her focus had returned to the room, Wayne was standing beside her, a coat she hadn’t noticed before in hand. “I’m coming with you.”

  Jo could only blink, a debate why he shouldn’t at the ready—

  —but why? Pride? Where had her pride gotten any of them before? The need to be alone? Yeah, like that was a good idea right now. Their earlier tiff? Perhaps leaving the Society and clearing the air with some fresh air would be the best for that, too.

  So instead of shooing him away, Jo just nodded in acquiescence and said, “Okay, let’s get this over with.”

  BTCOS NOTES 1

  Search Query 1: WISH GRANTER SOCIETY CIRCLE MAGIC

  Found original site that brought me here. (Not the sort of nostalgia I’m looking for) No new info.

  Found on CreepyPen.

  Story ignored in past life (maybe seen but forgot?). Ritual/folklore presented as fiction.

  “For this ritual you need two pieces of string. To start off, picture the desire clearly in your mind and wrap one string in a circle around your feet. Place the other string on the floor in front of you in another circle. This will make a portal for the god of death to enter.

  Don’t rush, it could take time, at some point he’ll come for you and then the God will begin the wishing game.”

  God of death=Wish Granter?

  Oldest record from 1800s. Rumor: transcribed from someone’s grandmother’s spell book? True origin unknown.

  “When you have visualized your wish for 5-10 minutes. Stare into the flame and say the following incantation:

  By candle’s magic burn

  The wishing hour does turn

  With spell’s words chanted

  A wishers wants are granted

  By power of the Goddess’s might

  All wants come to pass this night”

  Another mention of goddess

  Wishing hour? Relevant? Is time important?

  Consensus = no one knows where the rumors of the Wish Granter/circles came from

  Check next:

  Rumors across all cultures? Why?

  Anything else overlapped across cultures and times?

  Chapter 5

  A Single Eye

  Jo and Wayne stepped out of the Door and into a parking lot behind the back of a convenience store. Even outside of time, a biting cold nipped right through the jacket that never left her shoulders, prompting Jo to bury her hands as deep as possible into the front pockets.

  “The mansion should’ve given me a thicker hoodie,” she grumbled.

  “I was wondering why this appeared in my room, but I didn’t question.” Wayne shrugged on the coat.

  “Glad to know it’s considerate toward someone.” Jo rolled her eyes. How Wayne of all people had garnered favor with the mansion would forever elude her.

  “Don’t be bitter,” he chided (dare she think somewhat playfully?).

  “The only thing that’s bitter is this cold.”

  “Not used to the chill, doll?”

  “I see your hands are in your pockets as well,” Jo said with an envious glance. A real gentleman would’ve already offered it to her. Snow would’ve offered it to her, her mind insisted, as if forgetting her growing agitation at his perpetual dodging.

  “It’s nice to play pretend,” he murmured, as if he hadn’t realized he’d put them there. “I’m not clocked in, so it’s not like I can feel anything.”

  “Yeah, right. . .” Jo checked her watch, confirming that she was, indeed, outside of time. Perhaps the cold she felt was purely psychosomatic at the mere sight of snow banks on the sides of the roads, like Wayne’s hands in his pockets, and the shivering was a result of stress.

  Wayne tilted his head to the sky, took a deep breath, and exhaled. There was nothing. Jo watched, slowly turning into an icicle as Wayne tapped on his watch, and took a breath, exhaling a large plume of white. Satisfied, he tapped his watch again.

  “We only have ten hours . . . Was that really necessary?” Jo fell into step with him, their shoulders almost touching. She felt him shrug and Jo took a half step away, trying to avoid being too close while she pulled up her hood—the last thing she needed was for him to see her shaking hands. She was out of time and yet it was still frigid. It was like the rules of magic were breaking down around her.

  “It’s good to feel like I can still fog a mirror, now and then.”

  She understood that. They existed somewhere between the living and the dead, not quite enough of either to be satisfied. Jo tilted her head to the sky as well, breathing deeply. Unlike Wayne a moment ago, there was nothing. The first bit of warmth she felt was relief at the absence of abnormality.

  “You could clock in for it.”

  “Obviously.” Jo shot him a dumb look. “But it doesn’t matter.”

  “It doesn’t?”

  “Something about the Society now. . . It’s begun to feel more like the real world than here, like it matters more.” Jo looked around, for the first time really since their arrival. It was an idyllic area, a few train stops outside of Boston. “I’ve only ever seen places like this in movies and television. These quintessential little towns that just scream ‘raise a family here.’ Suburbia to the max.”

  “You lived in suburbia, I recall.” Wayne referenced their first-ever trip through the Door together, back to Jo’s home when she first joined the Society and was still coming to terms with it all. How long ago it all felt now . . . How fuzzy her memories were . . . Vaguely, she couldn’t help but wonder if they’d keep getting fuzzier, until they stopped existing at all.

  “Texas is different.”

  “How?”

  “Warmer, for one.” Jo gave him a small smile. “And the houses are different . . . These are tall and pointy. Everyone has their neat hedges and manicured lawns.”

  “I remember lawns in Texas.”

  “You’re just being difficult,” she huffed, sinking further into her hoodie.

  “I get you, dollface.” A large hand met the top of her head lightly, giving her hair a ruffle beneath the fabric. The gesture felt intimate, despite there being nothing to make it inherently so. “Boston and New York are both big cities, but even they’re different. Everywhere has its charms. The little things that no one else can recognize but you that make it home. Like walking into a house with a smell you’re familiar with, even though you’ve never been there before.”

  “That’s a good way to describe it,” Jo mused softly. “I don’t even know if I could remember those smells if I tried,” she confessed as much to herself as to him.

  Wayne was silent as they rounded a corner. But thankfully, he saved her before Jo could get too lost in her own mind. “I’m not so sure about that. You’ve got a good memory. If I recall, you were sniffing on instinct the moment we walked through your family’s front door.”

  Jo laughed at the memory. “True.”

  “But why would you say that you can’t remember?” The question landed delicately, but felt weighted.

  “I don’t know . . .” she murmured. “Things just seem . . . hazy, in some places. Every now and then, it feels like I can’t find the right memories. Like
this whole thing has been reality, and my life in Texas was the dream. Or maybe, it’s all still a dream that I’m waiting to wake up from.”

  Another deafeningly long pause. Then, forced laughter. “I can assure you, I would’ve noticed a dame like you walking around the Society. Safe to say it’s all been the real world, just one step at a time.”

  Stepping from one real world into the next, like the Door, Jo thought to herself. “Do you ever have trouble remembering?”

  She knew what he was going to say before he said it. The brief hesitation and then the all too quick “Sometimes, I suppose” told her everything. He had little trouble remembering. Or, if he did run into issues, they were not of the same sort as hers. It was as if something inside her was beginning to break down, tear apart a mask she didn’t know she was wearing.

  But did she even want to see what awaited her in the mirror when it was gone?

  “Why did you opt to come?” Jo asked hastily, trying to change the topic.

  Another painfully long pause. “A guy can’t just want some time with his friend?”

  “Friend? After I—”

  “It was completely uncalled for,” he agreed, before she could mention again the sore spot of his that she’d magically found. “But so was blaming you for the state of affairs. As Snow said, none of us knows how this works, or why. How can you be the cause of something without knowing any more than the rest of us?”

  “Well, thanks.”

  “Unless you do know something?” he added, low and borderline accusatory.

  Jo turned in his direction, so startled she almost missed a step.

  “You’re close to Snow, after all.”

  “If I knew something. . . you’d know,” she whispered, hoping he’d believe her. She didn’t know much and didn’t know for certain if she’d tell him even if she did. But she needed him to believe she would—needed it more than she cared to admit.