Mackie

 

“You’re the one responsible for my current state?”

Unfortunately, I realized later, I had chosen the word “state” for my predicament.  Helen looked immediately more suspicious while I, of course, suddenly had another mystery.   “Don’t you answer your cell phone?” she asked.

I touched the side of my purse before realizing that I’d left it at LAX.  “Oops,” I said.  “I forgot it.  What was that about killing me?”

“I’m going to kill you totally out of love,” she said.  “Really.  You can’t keep that Legacy; it will destroy you.  I know that girl’s body must fascinate you, that killing must hold special interest.  But believe me when I say someday you will look back on those perverse feelings and shiver.”

“I’m shivering now,” I said.  “I don’t want to kill anyone.  Are you threatening me?”

“That’s the trick of Feral Corruption,” she said.  “Anyone can develop almost any power through Feral means.  You need merely continue Feeding the power and it will last forever.  And that’s what you have.  A Feral, Corrupt power.”

“We’re having two totally different conversations here,” I said.  “Which has been happening to me all day.  I’d really appreciate it if, just for a minute, we could have just one.  Because I’d love some answers but everybody I know who might have answers comes off as, well, insane.”

“What answers do you want?” Helen asked.

“Where to start?  What connection do you have to DD.”

“DD?”

“Sorry, now I’m being confusing.  Darren Dark.  He’s the man that owned this apartment.  I think his name is completely ridiculous so I call him DD.”

“His name is just Darren.  He’s not a member of any Majestic House so he has no surname.  He was a wizard’s construct sometimes and he’s sometimes called Darren the Black or Foul Darren.  I guess he preferred Darren the Dark.”

“I would have chosen Darren Black,” I said.  “That’s much, much better.”

“I knew a Dirk Dart once,” Helen said. 

“Thank you for sharing that.  What is a Majestic House?”
“Ah, so Darren told you nothing.”

“Darren cornered me in an alley and whispered all kinds of insanities while a rapist stared and a hobo slept.  I thought he was going to kill me.”

“You belong to an ancient House,” Helen said, “indeed, the oldest and first House: Eden.”

“As in the Garden of?”

“As in the Garden of.  Our mutual father is Adam.”

“You’re kidding.  You’re not kidding?”

“Yup, sibling love and so forth.”

“Wait, incest?”

“Um, no, incest is wrong Mackie.  It’s taboo.  But sleeping with our siblings is OK if you were born in the Garden, pre-taboo.  Well, we make an exception for Isaac and Zoe who were conceived, not born, in the Garden.  So, you can sleep with Isaac or Gavin or Luc…  But if you had a brother by way of Elaine of Normandy, you couldn’t sleep with him.  That would be incest.  That would be wrong. 

“So, Eden family incest is ok but all other incest is evil?

“Got it in one!”

“You realize how hypocritical that sounds?

“I know, isn’t our family just the best!”  She seemed genuinely excited about it.  “Being caretakers of the universe really pays dividends.”
“Putting that insanity aside, Eden as in God and so forth.”

Helen shrugged.  “Adam and Eve, yah.  God… Don’t count on it.  Er, Him.  I personally believe Aunt Lilith and her theory that she, Adam, and Eve were just the first people who stumbled on magic and turned themselves into the mythical characters of their religion.  My memories of the early days of Eden are pretty fuzzy.  Eden exists.  We can attain Eden State and visit the Garden.”

“We can go to the Garden of Eden?”

“Sure.  I’ll take you there.  I mean, after I kill you and extracting the Legacy.”

“Why do you want to kill me?” I asked.  Not that she seemed particularly dangerous.  She was my size, after all, and I was armed. 

“I don’t want to kill you,” Helen said.  “Did you say there were witnesses at your Transcendence?”

“If you don’t want to kill someone you definitely shouldn’t.  In fact, if you do want to kill someone you still definitely shouldn’t.”  Though as I said that I thought of Poe and wondered if it were true.

“My options are limited,” Helen said.

“How limited?” I asked. 

“I’m a huntress and a warrior.  I’ve got to do things through killing.  When I kill you, I’ll absorb your Feral Legacy or perhaps transmogrify the power into a monster.  Though I’ve made enough monsters today.  My last one still hasn’t finished baking which is a shame.  I thought I’d need it because Darren would have trained you but that’s obviously not the case.”

“Darren was completely insane,” I said.  “Look around you.  How could anyone do that to an innocent little girl?”

“The better question is how could anyone remove such a Feral barrier?  Only with Feral powers.”

“I prayed it down.”

“Yeah, right,” Helen said.  “Good one.”

“No, I did.  Are you really my sister.”

“Absolutely,” Helen said.  “We even look alike.  Oh, by the way, I tied up your personal assistant and his lover in the basement of your apartment.  Do you want me to leave them there or call the cops?”

“You did what?”

“Tied them up in your basement after a little interrogation.  I didn’t hurt them.  But you could have cooperated and brought along your cell phone.  Now, about those witnesses…”

“Are you serious?  Did you really tie up my assistant?”

“Yes, and I’m very, very good at tying knots,” she said.  “They probably will starve if I don’t call for help.  I gather you want me to call the police for them…  After I kill you, of course.”

“You are totally mad,” I said.  “And the world is completely mad and I’m a cop and a movie star and I’m just plain Mackie Normand.”

“Ah, you’re confused about States,” Helen said.  “Regals—that’s we members of House Eden—move through the planes by adopting States.  They’re… Well, they’re identities, sort of a suit of clothing that we can change from world to world.”

“You’re saying there’s more than one world?”

“There’s an infinitely infinite number,” Helen said.  “But every plane worth going to is a variation of Earth like this one.  Traveling between planes is a sticky business.  We don’t know exactly how States work.  Démia has this crazy notion that we reverberate our spirits through the planes and create bodies and identities for ourselves, leaving behind our bodies in each new plane.”

“So this is the body I created for myself,” I said.

“No, of course not,” Helen said.  “I mean, it could be, I guess.  We can adjust ourselves in States in minor ways; but by and large that is the woman you really are.”

“Minor adjustments?”

“Height, bust size, skin tone, eye color,” Helen said.  “You might want to be black in Africa or Chinese in China.  Those states can be assumed.”

“I can be black,” I said.  “Shouldn’t I be black already?  I mean, if we’re from Eden and the first people were black…”

“Don’t confuse the issue,” Helen said.  “Father is brown—pure and simple.  He looks Iraqi.  Actually, he looks Sumerian but what’s the difference?  Besides, Dad fiddles with his State…”

“So, I can look like anything?  Why aren’t I taller?”

“Taller?  You are tall.  You are a tall and stately looking woman.”

“Spoken like a girl five-foot-two,” I said.

“I am not five-two,” she said, though of course she was that height exactly.  “I am five-three.  And a half.  But as for being taller, if you really want to be taller, well, you should really should be taller.”

“I was born taller,” I said. 

“Then secretly you wanted to be shorter,” Helen said.  I assured her I didn’t.  “We can only make minor adjustments.  Obviously, you look much the way you did when you were a younger woman…”

“No I don’t,” I said.  “I was plain and homely.”

“That’s impossible,” Helen said.  “You couldn’t have been.  I mean everyone in the family was basically reborn recently, a few of us mortal, and we all looked beautiful.  Delilah, who was seventy-five before she Transcended, was beautiful when she was a young woman.  You were born beautiful.”

“I was, well, homely.  At best average.”
“That’s impossible” Helen said, her voice incredibly surprised.  “It just can’t be.  Edens are always, always beautiful—well, unless we are lost in State which clearly you aren't.  All the men are more beautiful than any man who’s not a son of Adam; and all the women are more beautiful than any woman who is daughter of Eve.  It’s our fundamental nature: we are the most beautiful people in existence. You must have been under a spell.”

“Whatever,” I said.  She was so fervent about this issue that it frightened me a little.  “Am I a movie star?”

“Yes,” she said.  “A movie star/serial killer.”

“Serial killer?  When did I become a serial killer.”

“All those killing thoughts in your head,” she said.

“The only person talking about killing anyone is you!”

“You do seem to be managing the Feral Corruption quite well,” Helen said.  “Of course, you are an Eden and who knows the limits of our powers?”

“Am I or am I not a movie star?”

“You are,” Helen said.  “A pretty boring first State. Yah, most of us who went through Transcendence end up awakening to our powers as Regals in a new States.  You had yours last night, local time anyway.  Our fantasies often form the basis of our States.  You wanted to be a movie star so you became one when you assumed your first State.”

“So suddenly there are movies of me?”

“Yes,” she said.  “But have you seen any?  Your acting could suck.  States have a way of biting you in the ass if you aren’t honestly good at something.  It’s fine to assume the State of a painter but if you can’t paint sooner or later that will be made clear and your reputation will plummet.”

“But I’ve been nominated for Academy awards!”

“That’s the State, not you,” Helen said.  “Though—mind you—we are a notoriously talented bunch and possibly you are an excellent actress unbeknownst to yourself.  Don’t be surprised if you find your performance commendable in your movies.”

“So, I really am a movie star?”

“Yes,” Helen said.  “You can absolutely live that life.  I don’t recommend it, though.  I would find a different plane and create a new State where you are a young and struggling starlet.  It’s always more fun to start at the beginning; besides, you know that whatever you accomplish is within your own abilities not to mention you'll learn the actual craft as you go.”

“I can create another State for myself?”

“You can create an infinite number of States for yourself,” she said.  “Or maybe they’re already in existence.  It’s very confusing.  Remember, it’s a form of movement that also happens to be extremely cool.  If you wanted to visit the Shadowwield Earth—which is metaphysically on the other side of the universe—you’d have to get there by moving from State to State to State.  You’re taking metaphysically big hops but you’d still be moving.  But you can get caught up in States that, after all, represent your interests and fantasies at some level.

“But my question to you is this: do you have a pattern of killing people?  Did you create a State in which you are both a movie star and a serial killer?”

“Why do you call me a serial killer?” I said.  “I haven’t had a violent thought all day.”  Well, except for almost throttling Poe and nearly shoving Sholty across the room.  But I kept that to myself.

“Ah,” Helen said.  “No background for killing.  Maybe you bury it within.”

“Look, forget killing, I’m not killing anybody.  Before I caught my flight from LAX, I was reviewing my filmography and I was an action star—a martial artist.”

“Right,” she said.  “You would be.  Darren’s legacy is a dark warrior’s Legacy.  And I shouldn’t have mentioned that but I guess it’s too late.”

“All right.  But I find action films a bit tawdry and when I looked back I discovered later that I didn’t do those kinds of films.  I was suddenly a serious actor.”

“Sure,” Helen said.  “You altered your State.  A nascent State is Fluid—you can alter it.  If I came into a plane as a poor, orphaned girl I could shift the reality so that I was the a daughter of a rich family.”

“You could do that?” I asked.  “Make yourself rich with a thought?”

“Yes,” Helen said. 

“And it would be real.”

“The whole plane would be altered because of your State.  That’s a hard thing to get your mind around.  It’s fundamental, not some illusion.  Coreals—sort of the level of interplaner beings below us—fiddle with reality in less impressive ways.  But you really are an actress and you would find, if you went to obscure Hollywood vaults, your earliest screen tests and films.  If you imagined parents for yourself, they would have your baby pictures.  The only people who can possibly penetrate a State are other Regals and even we recognize it’s real—we can just sometimes sense the great alteration of reality that occurred to make it so.

“You wasted an obscene amount of energy shifting States.  You have very little flexibility left in that State.”

“You mean there’s a limit?” I said.

“Of course.  At first, the State is Liquid but the more you alter reality the more momentum you lose.  Eventually the State becomes a fixed or, as we joke, a Solid State.  If things go completely haywire in the State—and you didn’t just want to say the hell with it and move on—you could alter it but you’d have to do it with your own energy and that can weaken you for months.”

“Can you teach me how to do all this?” I asked.

“I can but won’t,” Helen said.  “But!”  She raised a finger.  “But one of our brothers or sisters will show you.  I’m really just the messenger, here.  Someone else will be your teacher.”

“So how come I’m a cop?” I asked.

“Eh?” Helen looked distracted.  She had scooted closer to me during our conversation.  “A cop?  You probably shifted States.”

“And a movie star?  I’m too young to have done both.”

“No,” Helen said.  “No, that’s impossible.  How did you manage that?  A State must be internally consistent.  Oh, for a while in Liquid State you could juggle the two but that wouldn’t last for long.  And you shouldn’t have the skill to do something like that.  Not to mention the power efficiency…”

I held up my badge for her.  “Since I came to Grimsby every cop I’ve met has recognized me.”

“Do you have cop fetish?  Did you always want to be a cop?”

“Certainly not,” I said.  “I’ve always been scared of guns.”

“Strange,” she said.  “But it’s time I get some answers.  What’s your mother’s name.”

“Elaine Normand,” I said.  Then, I remembered the odd name she’d mentioned to me earlier.  “Princess Elaine of Normandy.”

“Elaine?  Tall, busty, ambitious, kind of stupid?”

“First three out of the four,” I said. 

“I remember her, Dad loved her.  He spent maybe ten years with her on some obscure Earth…  But was it this one?   She was beautiful and willowy and entirely mortal.  But that was a thousand years ago!”

“So, I’m led to understand,” I said. 

“There’s all kinds of magic for keeping yourself young,” Helen said.  “But a thousand years?  She must have followed a path to immortality.  Though mortals can’t usually survive a millennium.  They go bonkers.”

“Is that what happened to DD?”

“No,” she said firmly.  “A black wizard created Darren to kill magi—the most powerful of white wizards.  It’s an almost impossible feat but Darren killed one.  I imagine that with his task fulfilled he just unraveled.  He was once a mortal man so I guess he couldn’t survive indefinitely either.  I never thought of it that way.  Yes, I guess his mortality finally caught up with him.”

“How old are you?”

“Ah, well, I was born in the garden,” Helen said.  “It’s sort of my problem.  We had to leave the garden as a home when I was just a kid, midway between ten and eleven.  So I have to reach adulthood rather violently on a regular basis.”

“I don’t consider you an adult.”

“Thanks!” Helen said.  “You’re nice.  I really am sorry about this.” 

With that last comment, Helen shot forward.