Chapter one: Everything's Jonathan's fault

Someone once said, that from chaos comes order.

From Warren's experience, this was not at all true. That was just something that specific someone had said to comfort himself when things were really bad.
Warren knew now that from chaos, more chaos always originates. There just wasn't an end to all suffering and idiocy the world produced.
And now, he was in the middle of all of it. There was nothing he could do to stop it. Nothing he could say to make it all go away.
He had to face it head on.
Sighing, he bent down and started picking up the mess from the basement floor.

It seemed endless.

---

After having thrown away almost everything that had been on the floor – old papers, for example, that hadn't been used for months – Warren went upstairs. Something told him he was needed up there... it could have something to do with the screaming and sounds of porcelain breaking against the floor, of course, but he preferred to call it intuition.

If downstairs had been chaos, upstairs was hell on earth. Jonathan was methodically going through every inch of the kitchen, trying to do God-knew-what, midst screaming like a madman and throwing everything he'd gone through on the floor, where it inevitably broke instantly.

"What the hell are you doing, you moron?" roared Warren in a convincingly murderous way. "You're destroying everything!"
Jonathan didn't even look his way. It was like he wasn't even present any more, and it was his carnal shell demolishing what little possessions they had.
"Someone's clearly broken in here," he mumbled to himself, throwing yet another porcelain cup onto the floor. "Everything's... everything's gone."
"Gone? What are you talking about? What's gone?"
"Everything."
"Yeah, I heard that," Warren said sardonically, grabbing hold of Jonathan's arm before he had a chance to destroy any more of their things. "Care to elaborate?"
"Ouch! You're hurting me!" Suddenly, it was like Jonathan finally woke up to see what he was doing. "Oh, crap."
"You could say that," retorted Warren, still sardonically and coldly. "You must have a pretty good reason for tearing apart the Lair like this. Please share."
Jonathan looked confused. "Yes... someone's stolen my herbs. The ones I was out picking some days ago. The ones I really, really need for the next ritual... thing I'm supposed to do."
"Oh yeah. The one with all the riches being drawn to m... err, to us."
"That one. Although, as I've told you before, it could have serious consequences. We could get sucked into a vortex or something. I don't know. I've never performed it."

"Yeah, yeah." Warren disregarded everything Jonathan had to say about the dangers of the rituals he had to perform. With the vast riches the expected, they could buy spare parts to build almost anything. And that'd really make things a hell of a lot easier. He was working on minimal budget, which pretty much meant stuff could go wrong any second. And that he didn't like. At all. "With the 'aaargh! We're being sucked into a vortex, and everything's Jonathan's fault!'... enough already, I've got the message, and I don't care."
"Yeah. That's what's troubling me," mumbled Jonathan. "But since it's clearly not going to happen anyway, there's nothing to worry about. I don't have the necessary herbs, so... well. Let's just forget it."
Warren grunted. "Never give up. Never surrender. You've probably just misplaced them. Where do we start looking?"
Jonathan gave him a look, filled with badly hidden contempt. "What do you think I've been doing all morning, Warren? Spring cleaning? I've looked the whole house through, except maybe the basement, and I don't keep my herbs down there anyway. That air is way to damp for them."
"Well then, maybe you haven't looked hard enough," sneered Warren.
"Oh, don't start with me! What about that ever-so-important screw-nut, then? You still haven't found that yet!" Jonathan sneered back. "Besides, you and Andrew never help me out with anything. It's all about the two of you, isn't it? I'm just the freakin' sidekick!"
Warren's eyes were aglow with hate and irritation. This is just too much, he thought to himself. That little rat doesn't know what he's talking about. "That's just ridiculous, Jonathan. We don't help because we can't. We're not the ones practising the magical arts, you are. What, you'd rather us spilling important liquids and meddling with your herbs – the ones you manage to keep before you lose them somewhere, that is – than stay out of your way? Would that make it easier for you?"
Jonathan sighed heavily. "You know what I mean. I have no real purpose in the group other than obliging your needs, Warren. I'm tired. I haven't had a full night's sleep in weeks, and the two of you are just fooling around. Oh, don't think I haven't noticed," he said, annoyed, when Warren glanced at him with eyes wide-open, as though he couldn't believe what he was hearing.
"Look, Jonathan, if you think for a second that I would..."
"The two of you are the best of friends," continued Jonathan. "I'm always on the outside. Which maybe is the best thing for everyone, since I don't approve of what you did to your ex and everything. I don't like killing people for no reason. She was innocent, and you slaughtered her..."

Warren didn't hear what Jonathan was saying anymore. He simply wasn't listening. So that's what he'd meant! Warren felt relief wash over him. Jonathan still had no clue, of what had happened between Andy and him, that fateful night not so many days ago. When he'd made that big, momentous mistake...
He shuddered at the memory. He still didn't know why it had happened, what had lead to it, because everything about that night was clouded by the fact that he'd been extremely drunk. But he remembered holding him in his arms, wanting... wanting to...

No. Warren threw the uncomfortable memories aside. Nothing had happened that night, nothing at all. Andrew was imagining things – hell, he was imagining things. It's not unusual to blend reality with fantasy in your mind after such an orgy in alcohol.
But if that was the case... if these memory-flashes were all fantasies...
Why was he fantasising about Andy?

"You're doing the ritual," he said, his voice hard and cold as ever.
Jonathan, who'd been right in the middle of accusing Warren of being a cold-blooded murderer and simply out of his mind, stopped, and looked at him, surprise easily read in his eyes.
"You haven't listened to anything I've said, have you?"
"No."
Jonathan grunted. "Well, what the Hellmouth did I expect." He paused. "Now, the ritual... can't do it. Sorry, I can't, not without the correct herbs."
"Don't you have some you can use instead of the missing ones?" Warren asked impatiently.
Jonathan gave it a moment's thought. He looked at Warren doubtfully. "There is a way... to perform the ritual without the missing herbs."
Warren lit up slightly. "Well, then. Ahead, brave Sir!" he said mockingly. "Do thy magic!"
"But it's a high-risk operation!" said Jonathan quickly. "It could mean serious trouble if I screw up... and I'm talking very serious. Like, 'the world will never be the same' serious."
"That serious, you say," Warren said, scratching his head.
"That serious."
It didn't take many seconds before Warren yet again declared: "You're doing the ritual."
Jonathan tried to say something, but Warren stopped him. "No, shut up. You're doing the ritual, you hear me? I don't care how high-risk it is, I really don't. I – I mean, we – need the money. Nothing can stand in our way."
Discouraged, Jonathan nodded silently. "Okay, Warren. I'll do it."