Anyway I really think I'm getting the hang of how the humor in the book is going to be? A lot of it is still way off of course, but I'm getting there.
good question
If not many people knew of the watch, how did occult symbols gain power, if the very meaning of occult is hidden? It's part of a wider system people at least are familiar enough with to give credence to. So wouldn't the watch be the same, if everyone knows of watches and their instinct upon seeing a magic watch would be to assume, "oh a magic watch, its magic is somehow time-travel related"? That's a great question, and I'll be sure to get back to you on that.
miscs
In a sense I believe what I'm writing to be possible. I believe it fiction, but my research leads me to conclude that Gef is very much real and possibly out there right now somewhere. A bit hippy-dippy maybe, but this is the very thing you run into with urban fantasy- the fact that people do believe in ghosts and demons, that there are wiccans and pagans out there, and you're treading in their ground much the way Moone had been treading straight through a fairy ring buried underneath a melting layer of spring snow. It is needful to tread lightly, and treat all characters involved with respect and understanding. High fantasy you can just do whatever. Orcs you're allowed to kill off in droves, because they're soldiers, bred for war, and stupid and ugly besides.
There wasn't much Moone could do in the situation, but what little he could do he tried to do with all the might he could. That was a thing that his WWII-veteran father had taught him as they stormed the beaches- well they didn't do it together but it's something his father had learned storming the Normandy beaches is what I meant. Watching his friends get turned into little sparkly bits of blood confetti. Or something. It's not funny, it shouldn't be funny, why am I laughing. blood confetti.
The guard was a heavyset pair of eyebrows sandwiched by impressive sideburns and topped with a ushanka. There was skin in there too, and the other necessary organs, and the man was also wearing clothing besides just a fish fur cap, but in her mind, Cloud just saw the man as the mess of hair and fur coming angrily at her. He wasn't literally made of facial hair. If he were, we would have told you.
Cloud's perspective now.
Mushroom Cloud (who is definitely of hippie parentage, YOU SHOULD BE ASSUMING THAT ALREADY) (and not like normal hippies either, but the really spacey ones, the ones who would have a magic-wielding sorceress daughter)- she had actually chafed against her parents' open-mindedness, but of course unthinkingly assumed many of the same things they assumed, that would have been eyebrow-raising in outside society; after all, she did believe in magic, did have earth-based powers, believed neo-pagan things... but did not, as her parents did, actually practice anything neopagan, as far as she knew.
She was maybe 20 years old?, exceedingly young, but old enough to be conscripted into this kind of life. That was the life she lived. She did a Charlie's Angels-style braless duck-and-roll behind a wall as a pair of cigarette-smoking mustaches approached. This was the kind of life she lived, and she was good at it.
She still believed in the Earth Mother of her parents' faith, but without a single body of canon or dogma really to ascribe to under it, she rejected that as a religion and practiced Christianity. Specifically Catholicism, because there was at least something there to grab onto. She flourished under dogma.
The beliefs of neo-pagans were reconstructionist, and until archeology or anthropology could deliver something solid in the way of the actual belief system of her pre-Christian ancestors, as they worshipped it, then she would stick to believing in something solid, something that required actual worship, religion over spirituality.
When Cloud explained it to him, Moone saw it this way: Grimoires and other works of neopagan belief are kind of like fan fiction, in a sense. Moone had, in his youth, subscribed to an embarrassing number of Star Trek fanzines, APAs, OWCAs, and small press associations, some regional, others national (any number would have been embarrassing, really; but this number was like embarrassing embarrassing, like other Trekkies would have seen his collection and gone, you need help.)
And the similarities between this fan fiction, and the fiction that people wrote about magic, was instructive, Cloud said. Just people saying things, they believed should be, instead of the way things were. Most of the sacred texts of Wicca, most "black books," were just essays on the nature of magic, pamphlets that had been canonized as the scripture itself. Imagining that from a Christian perspective, the idea was laughable.
Cloud still had control over earth-based sorcery, without really needing rituals or anything; the Goddess was still her Goddess, but her understanding of Her was non-denominational, while her understanding of the Judeo-Christian God was very denominational. She would never have been able to worship God God non-denominationally. Somewhat deliberately, she'd picked Catholicism, the one religion that had banned the publication of grimoires when mass publication was becoming a major force. Her understanding of God had to have order to it.
The Goddess, on the other hand, was a generic goddess figure, the syncretized concept of all pre-christian goddess figures. Earth-based, chthonic usually. (though some aspects of goddess were sky. etc.) No prayer or supplication was required for Cloud's goddess magic, just flexing a muscle and the earth obeyed her will. She didn't need a specific belief system, it could even have been the Christian God, who rejected graving images and the possession of other gods before Him, who had blessed her with magic powers.
It helped, however, to have at least a working understanding of the system of Magick itself. The hallways of the building here jutted off in strange directions, sometimes curving and curling in on themselves to lead to dead ends, and from this she could form a mental image of the shape of the overall building, recognize the glyph it represented, and have a map in her head of where she was and where she needed to go.
Each individual building on the complex represented just one part of a larger interconnected sigil, actually. Laid out like one of the Pentacles of the Great Key of Solomon, the eight buildings in the complex would have been all connected by long thin narrow hallways radiating out of a central hub, and a person could traverse from one building to another quite easily, underground and out of the weather. Quite easily, that is, if you were supposed to be there.
The nature of the hallways would be that anyone else in the hallway would have been able to see you, and that provided security in that any member of the tightly-knit compound would be able to instantly recognize you if you didn't belong. It would have been a lot safer over this for Cloud to traverse to the building she needed to get to by going aboveground, guards and all. But that was out of the question now.
And so Cloud used other methods at her disposal. Using the more powerful modes of her magick required a gnostic state, a state of total meditation which could be achieved in a few different ways. Some people spent decades of practice meditating; others induced mindlessness through drugs or sex or playing the bongos until they lost sense of place and time and self.
Cloud had her own method of dealing with things, of course.
She pulled out a pair of headphones, requesting psychic radio silence for a bit. Put the headphones over her ears, turned her Walkman on. Then drifted through her ears, a cheesy muzak rendition of the Boléro of all things; gently and jazzy and never building in intensity, just sort of floating there. Cloud's mind blanked out instantly.
[later there's a man who Cloud's pretty sure really IS just a literal giant beard.]
Kryptos (non superdog)
A state-of-the-art complex, the headquarters for the nameless organization was officially unnamed, but those who knew of it often used the shorthand of referring to it as the Kryptos complex, and Kryptos was another shorthand to refer to the organization it housed, similar to how The Circus referred to MI6. The building, underground, was an odd broken-plate sort of shape if you viewed it in the whole; it reminded Moone sort of a cross between Windows' old logo and the wavy flag window logo they had adopted after their new 3.1 OS. It was depressing to think about, but Moone in real life was a total dorknerd.
The Pentagram, the headquarters to the Department of Defense Against the Dark Arts (or something like that) are in Arlington. That's where the interagency Summit is.
October 21, 1967- the pentagon was exorcised by *a-hem* well-meaning, hippies, as part of a protest against the Vietnam War. Which displaced a lot of workers, of course, especially at a sensitive time for supernatural defense- thank heavens the Tet Offensive wouldn't start for another few months; that really did wild things to people's beliefs and affected metaphysics in strange ways.
Construction began not long after on the Pentagram, with displaced supernatural office workers working temporarily in some temporary place that wasn't the Pentagon.
The seal of the Pentagram also in a sense acted as a map to the place. It was the five-pointed Seal of Solomon. The central court, Soluzen. "Open unto me thy secret door and fulfill me of my purpose!"
(urgh, timeout here, this doesn't count toward the word count- but the word TETRAGRAMMATON is inscribed around the pentagrammatic seal of solomon, but the Pentagon is a department of defense thing, (and also is it defence or defense, which is the american spelling again?,) and also the harry potter joke is that alright?, because in the harry potter universe harry's already in school during the events of this book, but in our universe harry potter wouldn't be written for another 6 or 7 years. kryptos the sculpture in front of CIA headquarters is already around, so that's alright, it was installed in 1990 so hey the building is two years old or something, that's fine, but... pentagram is just so perfect for tetragrammaton, but unless tetragrammaton means dod and not cia, or unless we conflate the two agencies for some reason, none of this makes sense anyway.)
crappy freewrite about detainment
It was supposed to be a debriefing, an examination into Pontifex's loyalties to ensure he wasn't trying to plant himself as a double-agent. But the time for debriefing was long past, they hadn't even scanned him, only probed about things beyond his area of expertise.
They thought that maybe Pontifex has the Antichrist particle, the God destroyer, but he didn't. Nobody did. It was just a rumor. As he'd told them.
"There." Pause. "Is no." Pause. "God." An uncomfortably long pause. "Destroyer."
As far as Pontifex knew of course. If they wanted information on that they should have recruited someone else. Pontifex was a defector. He had rights.
RESEARCH ALL THIS KINDA THING MAAAN
Moone frees Pontifex
The door came open easily. It was unlocked.
The walls of the holding room were drab, the lighting was drab, the carpeting was Eastern European. Pontifex sat behind a table, drab, with a drab lamp that apparently didn't pose a safety hazard or suicide risk. Maybe it was bugged. The lamp was French, and drab. The window displayed a cheerful flowery scene with a lush verdant forest beyond, which made it all the more depressing that it was all an illusion and the building was just underground.
The door could be unlocked, and Pontifex wouldn't escape, because the Pontifex was cold iron handcuffed to the floor and table.
This wasn't where Pontifex was being held, then. It was just a debriefing room; the assassination of the Secretary must have interrupted something. Did the Secretary stop by on his visit? Did that have to do with anything? Moone dug into his coat pocket, and pulled out an old golden fob watch. He checked it, and spoke to the Pontifex, looking up.
"You can bestow your aura," Moone stated, "and it enhances the powers of whoever takes it on."
...
"I need you to bestow your aura on me. We both need something, and each can offer the other what the other wants. If that's not the cause for a deal to be made then I don't know what is."
They had been communicating for weeks, and Moone truly felt known, as he had known. [shoooow thissss!] "I trust you, though they apparently don't."
"I didn't do it, and we're not in collusion or anything. Just saying that right now where the bug can hear."
"This is a lamp."
"It's not, bugged or anything? I'm hoping it's bugged."
"No, it's just an ordinary lamp. French, though." Pontifex would reveal later that he was lying here, of course.
The lamp was bugged, though it was still French so he wasn't lying about that part. Objectively, Moone's knowing the lamp was bugged was highly mootable; it was plausible either way whether Moone would have known about the bug or not, but him saying it out loud really ruined the deniability entirely, meaning Moone could have been lying for the bug, and the whole thing would have been inadmissible as evidence. Knowing you're under surveillance you act in different ways.
"Oh, well. What I'm saying is still true. Though I wouldn't have narrated something we both already knew if the room weren't bugged." Moone looked at his pocket watch, currently counting down; there were five minutes left.
"I've been turning it over in my mind, and I have genuine reason to think your bestowing aura would allow us both to get out of here. I need to gather up evidence against Gef, and there's a man investigating me who would have just the sort of information we need. If you bestow your boon upon me, in return I'll let you free, right now, and upon release at the end of our agreement."
They [started some sort of binding ritual RESEARCH,] Moone presiding. [Moone dictated what he would do for the Pontifex, Pontifex dictated what he would do for Moone.]
"Thus we both shall do. Until..." There was a pause- the duration of the Contract was an essential part of the power of the magic involved.
Until when? Until they both were out of danger? Until Gef was behind bars, or terminated? Moone had felt the power of the Pontifex's aura, though. Wanted it for himself, forever. The power of power itself. Moone sucked in a breath, and went for the riskiest possible phrasing. No going back now.
"Until I restore such boons to you in full." Which, of course, Moone could well have decided was never.
He would think back later and remark how foolish that was. Moone dictating the terms of the contract had everything to lose, while Pontifex had everything to gain. Pontifex was the one in power in this deal between them, Pontifex was only detained while Moone was in danger for his life.
But for reasons as muddy as the reason why Moone had negotiated the terms so broadly, Pontifex accepted those terms. Maybe he knew of Moone's powers and swung with them, thinking Moone was acting wisely instead of rashly. Or maybe that was being too liberal toward him, too logical; Pontifex had a death wish, which could have come through here, and maybe that's why he'd accepted. Moone didn't know Pontifex personally, really, as much as he'd fancied that he did. Maybe Moone, trusting Pontifex too much, was getting the bum end of the deal. "Deal," he pronounced, and the lights flickered and something in an ancient part of the world stirred and Moone felt some part of his soul change in him as the contract went through. It was as with any other contract or supernaturally binding agreement, but this represented so much more. It wasn't even the power itself, but the promise of future power. This initiation of a Contract, this metaphysical shifting in some part of Moone that he couldn't begin to understand, this gave Moone butterflies.
Fifteen seconds on the pocket watch.
Moone undid the cuffs with a wave of a shaky hand. Now unshackled from the table, Pontifex clasped Moone's hand in one hand, and opened his other, extending his thumb out to the center of Moone's forehead. There was a rush, like a thousand bats flooding out of a South American cave. It was even more than Moon had ever imagined.
The pocket watch doesn't allow for time travel in itself, but for the summoning of those who are time travelers. In that sense it was very much like a genie lamp.
my minor characters are just getting more and more bizarre
There was one guard who was very much physically in a position to do something about it, but was nowhere near there emotionally. Haarold Loyd was distracted currently because he was undergoing a breakup with his girlfriend Veronica, who was breaking up with him because apparently he wasn't the clone of famous silent film star Harold Lloyd, but of Harold's long-lost identical twin brother Clint Lloyd. As much as Haarold protested that it shouldn't really matter because the DNA was, y'know, exactly the same, Veronica would have none of it, and apparently she'd only gotten interested in him because of his connection to fame and glory, the identity mattered, while Haarold had all this time been thinking that he sensed genuine chemistry between them?... So that entire scenario was disheartening, to say the least.
There was someone out there brainwashed to believe that they were the real Harold Lloyd, and that fact gave Haarold frequent night terrors; he had been cloned to act as an exact double to the film star as part of a bizarre Communist assassination attempt against ~a certain public figure~ vocal in his support against un-American activities in Hollywood, a plot which had naturally gone horribly awry leaving only broken dreams and broken minds. They'd meant to brainwash him, Haarold, but had mixed up the baby baskets, leaving someone else instead to be pumped full of growth hormones and grow up in a false level of reality with no idea of who they truly were, which Haarold would go down to his grave regretting. A latter-day changeling, and it should have been him.
Haarold sidled up to Moone at the bar, knowing him only as the Mothman.
"Sometimes I think we all are, just, hanging, dangling above the streets off of the hands of a giant clock, the hands of Time; holding on to it like it's the one thing that can save us, though Time itself is the thing which we're fighting against. Sometimes I think all we all are just glasses, the big round kind, just waiting to shatter against the pavement below."
They both sat in silence for a moment.
They're sitting there still. Figuratively.
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