Chapter II: Gravity

[Karl the Mad]

"It felt like Leonard was hiding this from himself," Preston mused, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. "Or his t-tormentor. There must be more."

Mary glanced at Three. "This correlates with what we learned from Lambert himself, at least," she remarked. "I really hope demonic possession isn't a legitimate legal defense in America, though; it sure wouldn't fly in Hong Kong."

"Why's 'at?" Charles asked reasonably. "Yer ain't in control a' yerse'f 'n yer actions, aye? I know a thing 'r two 'bout bein' possessed..."

"Demonic possession, Jenkins," Mary repeated patiently. "What happened to you and Drake can't compare. Demons can't just waltz in and take over, they have to be invited at some point, by someone. Right?" and she gave Tom and Naberius an inquiring glance. "In this case, someone in the Hundred Devils started it all, and the Prince has been leapfrogging around looking for the perfect host. A Triad boss, an industry leader... now a washed-up attorney."

"So you'd go up the line until you found whoever made the first Summons?" Preston asked. Mary nodded in agreement, but didn't say anything more.

[TennyoCeres84]

Once the video was paused, the trio of siblings were left with stunned, albeit saddened expressions at the shift in tone during the movie. The archmage shared their reaction, but her tight-lipped mouth signified her resoluteness to aid them, one of her hands unconsciously and slowly clenching into a fist.

"We may need to find the source that brought the Goat to the this realm, set up the accord find the perfect host body. Just as any good mage should know all the aspects of conjuring, we need to know as many details as possible. The Goat's basic intent is to flee Hell to set up base here to combat the Void Weavers and the Others that have already made themselves known. To him, the mortals living here are of little consequence and can be swept away easily," Meris summarized.

She set her eyes on Naberius and then the assembly. "Pandemonium will likely send an agent if the Goat succeeds in stealing Mr. Ephesian's body and allows other demons to claim bodies," she observed. "Only they will be limited in how much they can curtail the rise in demonic activity. From what I've already seen, the imps are desperate for any method to be incarnated. Greater demons will have first pick, due to the Inspector's influence."

"Three and Charles already met with one of those possessed corpses; he called himself Baron," added Ciaran, recalling their account.

"We need to watch the rest of the tape, regardless of whatever else is on there," Aislinn stated.

[IamLEAM1983]

Tom nodded at Mary's explanation. "Named demons - figureheads in the hierarchy - have to be invited, yes. Rhadamantus was invited by equal parts Aislinn and myself, whereas I reached the mortal plane like any common imp: I punched my way through to here. Figuratively speaking, that is. I was perceived as too weak, too unimportant to warrant additional safety - a side-effect of my previously not wearing my abilities as a Warlock on my sleeves before claiming Quint's body. If anyone were to banish me, though, then I'd need a proper invitation to come back - a proper summons."

He gave the group a quick and encompassing glance. "I have a Name, now. Tom Magnus can't exist on the mortal plane if nobody allows it. As for demonic possession being a valid defense - that would depend on witness testimonies. If Lambert was only ever oppressed and was never actively controlled, then responsibility still falls on him. This is where mister Ephesian is currently sitting, as a reference. He's not possessed - he's showing signs of oppression."

The Warlock then looked back to Mary. "Outright possession, however? I pity the poor fool who has to live with the actions perpetrated by an invading demon - most aren't even conscious on a background level, while it's happening."

He clicked his tongue. "Imagine that someone is strong enough to guide your hands forcefully, to stand behind you and manipulate you like a puppet. Imagine that this particular someone makes you kill an innocent. Are you responsible? Could you reasonably have put defenses in place? You never sent any commands to your muscles - they just moved against your will and ended a life you would've rather protected. Not only that - you weren't even conscious while it happened. How could you be responsible?"

The warthog offered Mary a pained look. "This is a level of supernatural involvement and arcane theory that's closely tied to matters of faith or personal ideology. The Supreme Court would look at this situation rationally, the clergy would assume the possession victim's past sins provided the demon with a breach to invade and could claim that this makes it murder and not, in fact, involuntary manslaughter - the fact this is a thorny issue no judicial system has ever managed to crack, either here or in the Outer Planes. Heaven and Pandemonium both work on a case-by-case basis, considering. It makes for less clerical errors and lapses in judgment."

Naberius pushed the Fast Forward button on the tape player and then looked back to the group. "There is nothing on here that could provide us with an obvious clue as to who first uttered the Black Goat's Name, but we can try for the next best thing: find out when mister Ephesian first unconsciously heard the Inspector's Name and when he uttered it as an unconscious attractor..."

Three narrowed his eyes. "Wait a sec - a demon's Name is like a trigger switch, then. Even if the Goat has specific criteria, there's more than six-point-five billion mortals on the planet, plus the folks living offworld or orbiting around Gliese. If someone who fits hears a demon's name or says it unwittingly, they get some kind of ping - an alert signal. Am I getting this right?"

Naberius nodded in the affirmative. Three kept going. "So someone narrowed the Black Goat's search bandwidth of sorts, pointed him to Leonard... Who could've done that?
- An associate of the Red Devils," chanced Naberius, "or nearly anyone else. Several groups have something to gain out of using the Inspector's planned invasion as a proxy for their own ends."

His suspicion confirmed, Three stood up. "Keep going - I'll be right back. I need to fetch one of our tablets, see what else is in the Megiddo file Doc X plucked out of Lambert's network for us. There has to be a connection, someone who pointed Lambert in Ephesian's direction with the keyphrase the Prince was waiting for..."

[TennyoCeres84]

"Would knowing the history on the Black Goat help out at all? I mean, he was arrogant enough to side with Lucifer; Lucifer tossed him the keys and bailed when he grew exasperated at the lack of cohesion in Hell. What's his past, though?" Aislinn asked. "He had to have been more than just an overblown narcissist with a thing for black magic at one point, right?"

[Karl the Mad]

"So all that about saying a demon's name three times and he'll show up is sort of true?" Mary asked. She grinned at Tom. "Well, I guess I know what to do when next I've a crick in my neck, hmm?"

Before Three could get too far, though, Preston stopped him by holding out one of his devices, timing it so that Drake walked into it with his stomach. "Use one of mine," he explained cheekily. "Bit smaller than a tablet, but what can ya do?"

[IamLEAM1983]

Three looked down at the object that was proffered, a brief look of unease lingering on his features. Knowing Preston, he had vague fears of being stuck with someone else's favorite operating system, but he didn't have it in him to refuse. "Thanks," he instead said, "I'll try not to mess things up too much - all I want is to hook up to either my or Aislinn's tablet from Wi-Fi. That is, unless you've already cleaned out the kit we carried out to HK and found the Megiddo archive."

In the meantime, Tom settled with an amused, if still understandably flattered chuckle. "I won't necessarily show up like that," he said, snapping his fingers, "the laws of Physics being what they are and me being pretty damn corporeal - but I'll probably pick up on you having flashed my card, so to speak. It's not as effective, immediate or dramatic as a full-blown summons, of course - but that's out of the cards for me. I'm not letting go of this body; not anytime soon. Besides, I'm still short of anything resembling a personalized summoning ritual - nobody ever wrote grimoire or textbook entries about me."

He pouted. "Or you could just email, call or text me. These are a few less schizophrenic options than your standing in front of a bathroom mirror and going Save my poor back, O Chiropractic Fiend! Unless you're alone, that is, in which case you're free to look and act as silly as you'd like."

Naberius gave the proceedings a didactic, if perhaps slightly impatient nod. "On that wonderful note, here is another perk to being as mister Magnus and myself are..."

With the video still paused, he turned the old receiver's channel-selection knob. Something was on, despite the clear fact that the television had no rabbit-ears or cable jack connected to it. A few antiquated thrumming noises and buzzing white haze displays later, the Steward stopped onto what looked like the old early-nineties introduction to the History Channel's programming blocks. One fade to black later, vague Middle-Eastern music began to emanate from the television's cheap speakers, color fading back in as the camera slowly panned across a sandy expanse set against a stark blue sky. The voice of Sir David Attenborough began narrating what had to be a National Geographic special that had never been actually made - much less could've been made.

"Mendes, Egypt. Southwest of the Valley of Kings lies the birthplace of the Land of the Pharaohs, one of the many resting points of roving Paleolithic bands. It is there that one of Civilization's first seeds were planted.

Current studies indicate that Civilization is a concept that emerges organically - brick by brick, yard by yard. The need for survival informs the need for collaboration; collaboration informs structure - structure begets Culture. The wondrous capabilities of the human and anthro brain need no introduction, as it is by our forefathers' struggles alone that we stand here today; a collection of the dominant species on this planet."

The view changed to a rapid-fire series of shots of cityscapes and moving crowds; Hope, Paris and Hong Kong briefly flashing onscreen. Some coastal fishing village then followed, showing selkie men and women in fishing waders pulling back nets laden with fish and cages carrying lobsters onto a ship's deck.

"What if there had been a spark?" asked Attenborough, "Something to kindle the fire, start the flames?"

A man came onscreen, filmed in what looked like a university professor's cramped office. "We've got the Ancient Astronaut proponents claiming aliens kick-started our societal development, and some Karthians are fanning the flames by citing their own Percursor myths and legends. The one thing that most people forget to do, though, is to take Scripture at face value; as a first-hand account of mortals interacting with beings from a different plane of existence.

Arcane Studies have gained traction in the last century, there's practitioners with heaps of data concerning things like the Thrones, the Princes, major or minor supernatural convergences that gave shape and form to early mortal endeavors on Earth - and so many people still dismiss them outright. Darwinism accounts for Humanity's development, On the Origin of Species explains how we hairless primates came about - and the dragons have explained how they bootstrapped anthro development shortly before the last Ice Age. We have Homo Erectus-level anthro mammoth skeletons on display in London, with no traceable in-between for them and their animal counterparts. They just - popped up, almost fully formed from Day One. That, we know, is on the dragons. Your Labrador coworker? He wouldn't exist if it wasn't for all that via clinging to his DNA."

Attenborough again, with the camera slowly sweeping down to what looked like the half-buried remains of a campfire. Egypt's scorching sun again. "Our gods are real. Whether you believe in God, Yahweh, Vishnu or Allah - they visited us as angels. For every corner of the globe where Civilization took root, traces can be found - traces that only trained Archmages and specialists in Seraphic magic can recognize.

Was this Egypt's first cooking fire? Who took roving bands of desert tribesmen and shaped them into conquerors and kings?"

A dramatic pause.

"This man did."

After a fade to black, a slab of sandstone slid forward and into dim torchlight, the early-nineties CGI opening naively applying a low-res photograph onto an equally muddy-looking stone texture. The crude etching on its surface represented an anthro goat endowed with wings, arms outstretched in what looked like a beckoning gesture. The image then morphed into Eliphas Levi's old alchemical representation of Baphomet, here altered to look like a clearly fully anatomically-correct anthro goat male. Sitting cross-legged, he gestured downwards at a moon-shaped token with one hand, and upwards at a sun-shaped one. A flame floated between his horns - black and twisted expanses of keratin. 

Another morph, and Meris would recognize the entry from Collin de Plancy's Infernal Dictionary that was related to Leonard, the so-called Chief Inspector of Black Magic: the caprine features, the regal bearing, the obvious contempt for whomever gazed at this image and the demon's self-styled sophistication - it was all clear to see.

Titles came into view, blazing Serif capitals scored by dramatic Pig Latin chants: Master Leonard - Vanity Be Thy Name.

Three raised a finger. "That's a cool display, but I've got two questions. One, are we going to need to sit through an entire documentary just so we figure out who this asshole is, and two, is the guy's name coincidental? Our client's named Leonard."

Naberius scoffed as if the answer was obvious. "Vanity itself would choose a vessel that would conform to its exacting criteria. Not needing to change names is the least of the Black Goat's required provisos, to be honest.
- So he's only ever possessed other Leonards, then," deduced Three. "That narrows the band down some, I'd say."

The Steward then stepped slightly aside, freeing the line of sight to one of Archie's grandfather clocks. "As for the length of this presentation - you'll find I've isolated us within a temporal bubble. Exhaustion, loss of interest or pressing body needs should no longer be concerns to any of you until we'll have finished. Simply put, I've all made it so you are temporarily able to process the following much faster than your own body's functions could allow. Time hasn't been frozen, we are simply having this discussion much faster than your normal physical limitations would allow."

[TennyoCeres84]

While she had some idea of who the Goat was, Aislinn couldn't help but blanch upon seeing the depictions. Tom would likely understand her discomfort, as they had briefly ran into the Prince during their task of getting Rhadamantus.

Meris noted her granddaughter's shift in demeanor. "You look like you've had a case of deja vu, lass? What's wrong?" she asked.

"We actually met this bastard while on our way to retrieve Rhadamantus. He unknowingly gave us a ride on his coach when Tom pretended to be like Quint, and I played along. That wasn't long after we bailed from Asmodeus's bordello, since his siblings hijacked his nap and I accidentally found my way into his mind," she explained awkwardly.

The archmage looked from Aislinn to Tom and then back to Aislinn, her mouth slightly parted in surprise. She gave them a small, impressed smile. "Quite an adventurous way to start a mentor-pupil relationship," she commented wryly. Aislinn let out a nervous scoff at herself.

Suffice to say, Ciaran and Neasa couldn't stop themselves from staring at their sister with some concern; however, they didn't seem to be angry with Tom.

[IamLEAM1983]

The warthog couldn't help himself but to clasp at one of Aislinn's hands briefly. "Believe me," he told the other roanes, "I didn't want this to happen - or at least not so soon - but it provided us with a sizable opportunity. We gained some headway and freed Rhadamantus ahead of schedule, and we had the chance to assess the main culprit himself. I regrettably can't stop my siblings from trying to reclaim or punish me; they've been at it for centuries, now."

He bit his lower lip. "Those who follow Asmodeus think I'm too considerate of mortals, that I've stopped trusting my lust and my baser instincts. They're obviously right; I wouldn't be here otherwise. We've already gone over the lengths I'm willing to go to in order to control myself."

Archie frowned lightly. "Is there a means you could employ in order to more adequately shield your mind during periods of unconsciousness? I believe Aislinn would rather her second trip to Hell happened at a moment of her choosing instead of happenstance and her friend's occasional struggles with literal sex fiends..."

Tom sighed. "I've been giving it my best, boss. Meditating helps, but it doesn't alleviate the pressure. I don't want to turn this into a sappy TV movie drama by rejecting my own apprentice - and I can't help my needs. I can't help that I can sense Aislinn's power and how it's growing, and I just-"

Holden nodded, raising a hand to make it clear he wasn't blaming the incubus. "I understand, Tom. Nevertheless, you're to help Aislinn in finding a means to more securely tether her soul to her own body, at least if and when you are both planning, erm, intimate hours spent together. She deserves restful nights, as do we all, and I won't let one of my employees come to work groggy and sleep-deprived because her boyfriend accidentally took her on a joyride along the Acheron's shores! Is that clear?"

Lips pursed, Magnus nodded. "Duly noted, boss. I realize how poorly this speaks of me."

Archie gestured dismissively. "Stop that; you're better than this, Tom! I'm a Clank and a spy, can I help the fact that I can worm my way our of arm-holds that would break Marianna's own augmented limbs? Of course I can't; the same way Neasa can't help herself if her pelt makes a better swimmer out of her than you'll ever be! You are an incubus, and we've already established this fact at great length. There are certain things you can do that none of the rest of us can, and certain things you must do that none of the rest of us even have to consider! I've no mind to drag you to court, proverbially speaking - I only ask that you be more careful in future.

You spoke of consideration as being alien to succubi and incubi? Then be considerate towards Aislinn. I think she realizes your nature enough to understand that you won't always have the patience or sheer physical ability to wait for her; and you should help her protect herself from these instances. Your rapports should be consensual and not strictly based upon the strength of your carnal cravings. Point in fact, and take it from a man who knows - intimacy is never as appreciated as when it's initiated by the loved one, instead of by oneself."

[TennyoCeres84]

After her compliments toward the pair, Meris had quietly been deep in thought, as though she were brewing ideas to possibly solve Tom's predicament. She looked toward the pair and started, "If I may make a suggestion on how you might be able to block out Tom's extended family, I believe I have an idea, taken from my experiences."

Very curious, the mageling inquired, "What is it?"

"Setting up a proverbial house, so to speak. Nereus and I were successful at creating our own mental sanctuary by creating a residence with expansive and varied forms of terrain, acting as a sort of defensive labyrinth to prevent snooping against unwanted guests. You don't have the Darkhallow at your disposal, but you could employ scribing on a very personal level, unique to you both. You could add whatever you wanted, rooms that lead nowhere, infinite landscapes, traps, you name it."

She eyed Tom pointedly and offered, "You want to stop your brothers and sisters from slipping in? Make a commitment to Aislinn by using your growing connection with her as a defense, as potent as any hallowed item against a demon. The more you work together, the stronger it'll be. What I'm suggesting will certainly be a challenge, but do you think you can do it, Tom?"

[Karl the Mad]

"If you mess it up I can restore backwards," Preston reassured Three, although he loathed losing any data at all and would probably find Drake's tablet usage interesting on some level. "And yes, I cleaned out. Everything you need should be in there."

Charles was back in his own little world, most of his attention on the video and the associated chatter, the rest revolving around another question. Could angels be called up like demons? He hadn't had a decent fight in a long time, a real chance to go all out and just whale on an opponent. "This isn't the nineteenth century either, you know," Mary told Tom in the meantime. "Consideration doesn't have to be archaic, either. And neither does your architecture."