Required Author's Notes:
I'm aware that there are some historical inaccuracies in Chapter 2. Some mighty whoppers of historical inaccuracies, come to mention it. I will fix these eventually. Probably.

Chapter 4: Beth
April, 1979
The middle-aged man pushed the wheelchair as far as the old gravel drive, where the specially hired, wheelchair-accessible taxi awaited.
"You mustn't go, Master," Marcus fretted for the third time.
Jack smiled up sadly at the man's strained face. Marcus is so afraid of Dracan. I wish I could ease your fears, my old friend. But Jack was afraid too--not of Dracan, certainly, but of what he could do in a fit of impulsiveness.
"It's not my place, sir, but--"
Jack exhaled pensively. He'd hoped to be gone by now, leaving this dreary old place and its quarreling old men for the refreshing new world--for a short time, at least. He knew that he'd return, that he was as much a dusty old relic as Dracan and Crowley. But he'd hoped to at least forget the terrible events of the past year for a time.
"Dracan concerns you." Piercing eyes noted Marcus' hesitant nod. Jack sighed to himself. My brother, forgive me. It was only a precaution. I never planned to do this. "The key to Master Crowley's wardrobe," he began very quietly. "You know where it is?"
"Of course, sir. I do his laundry."
"Very good." Jack steered the man with one hand on his shoulder, until Marcus squatted uncomfortably at eye level. "In the drawer beneath is a wooden box. I made it. If Dracan does anything to endanger yourself, Crowley, or this place while I am gone, unlock the cupboard, take out the box, and, somehow, get Dracan's star. Put it in the box and close it. Lock the cupboard again and get away as fast as you can. Do you understand?"
His eyes widened impossibly, showing white all around. "But, sir, if Master Dracan opens the wardrobe--"
Jack enunciated very carefully. "The box doesn't open once it closes, Marcus. So I'd advise you to make it count should you need to use it."
"Oh. Oh." Fear twisted the man's pale features. "Only if we are in danger?" He looked desperate to avoid that terrible duty. They both knew what it would do to Dracan to lose his precious Star. I wish there was someone beside you, my old friend. But Crowley was too weak. Dracan would absolutely explode if Crowley challenged his authority like this. An escaped servant might be beneath his notice for a little while.
"Only then. You won't need it." Jack wished that he believed his own platitudes. "You have been the best of companions and friends, Marcus. I sincerely hope that you are here when I return."

When the woman answered the knock at her door, she was toweling excess shower water from her long, dark hair. But she paused, half-hunched in that awkward posture, when her brown eyes met those of the man in the doorway. His thin hands rested lightly on the arms of his wheelchair, the only sign of his tension their rhythmic clenching and unclenching.
"Good evening," Jack said politely, cocking his head at her expression. "Am I not welcome here?"
Beth stepped aside far enough for the older man to squeeze his wheelchair in through the door. "Of course, you can come in. But, Jack," she looked into his eyes, her own gaze a mixture of exasperation and sympathy, "my answer is the same."
Jack spread his hands calmly. "I'm here to change your mind."

This man, Beth decided, is the single most stubborn, smug, arrogant, bull-headed human being I have ever met in my life.
"You haven't associated with the men I live with," Jack observed calmly, pausing for a moment with the teapot hovering in one hand. "Otherwise, you would not say that."
"I didn't say that. Get out of my head, Jack."
The wheelchair-bound man shrugged complacently. "As you wish."
Enough was enough. Beth stomped over to where Jack had set his chair, and sat down firmly on the end of the couch closest to him. "Look, Jack--I know how much this means to you. I know how much this has influenced your life. But I can't help you. You know that."
Jack frowned. This odd man, with his wild claims of power and Art and ancient Brotherhoods, was obviously not accustomed to hearing no. "What you can do--"
"--is not in the league of healing paralysis!" Beth rose to pace, then remembered Jack, and somewhat guiltily sat back down again. "I'm a psychic healer, Jack. I don't perform miracles. What I do is encourage the power within the individual to heal himself or herself. I can't convince decades-old nerve and bone damage to knit itself up."
"You sell yourself short," Jack noted clinically. "Technically, nothing is impossible with the Art. Except murder--and healing. But you have the capacity for both the Art and healing, though you only use the one. That lecture you gave in London last year--I could sense your potential from the audience. It's an extremely rare gift--and the reason I am here."
"This is another travel invitation, isn't it?"
Jack regarded her levelly. "Give me the same chance that you would any other of your patients, Beth. That is all I ask. Chant, dance, use incense, use crystals, whatever it is that you do, just use your power to tell me that--not your rational judgment." Jack tapped his head. "I don't trust judgment, sometimes. People are too wrapped up in their own prejudices. The Art is without them."
Beth sighed. "Fine." She supposed that she owed Jack that much. Beth wasn't quite sure that she believed all of Jack's wild claims, but his letters revealed obvious and strong occult skill. She'd already learned much from him--though his methods were certainly different from her own.
Almost a year ago, she'd received the first letter from Scotland regarding her lectures in London. Beth ended up with more than a few letters from lonely souls claiming occult powers, all of them either charlatans or seriously disturbed. Jack had been very different. He spoke with the voice of an experience she could barely grasp, simple instructions which had greatly focused her power and hinted at gifts beyond her modest healing talent.
But this Art, this ridiculous talk of summoning demons and levitation and other nonsense! I may be a flake, but I'm a practical flake. His philosophy, his reclusive research, hardly fit in with her own dynamic notion that everyone had the power, his Art, as potential within them. The debate had made their letters…interesting, to say the least.
Jack quirked an eyebrow but said nothing as she exited the room. When she returned a moment later, box in hand, his smug expression blossomed into a wide grin.
"Tarot cards?" the man inquired, amused. "Why not tea leaves--or animal entrails?"
"Don't be crude, Jack. I don't criticize your methods."
"You do, as I recall." He leaned back in the chair. "With the Art, no props are required for prescience--dreams, visions, what-have-you. I had parlor tricks like this down when I was thirteen, without the crutches."
"I'm very proud. Hush and let me focus on this." Beth had performed successfully for skeptics before--it was one of the reasons why she was one of the most sought-after psychics and healers in California. Not many occultists could make a decent living off of speaking engagements and book royalties. Putting that thought behind her, Beth allowed herself to sink into that calm place below thought, where she touched that power within her, connecting her to the earth and, by extension, to all things on it. Jack was watching her very closely, eyes oddly intent on her face, as though she was doing something particularly interesting.
Slim hands shuffled the cards with a familiar affection before passing the deck to the man opposite. "Pick ten."
Shrugging, Jack shuffled the cards easily and counted out ten, passing them back to her. With a practiced ease, Beth dealt them out in the familiar pattern. Keen dark eyes passed quickly over the cards, noting those that stood out.
"Well?" Jack prompted with a glint of mischief in his eyes. "When do I get my rich husband? Tall, dark, and--"
"Hush. Right now." Against the background of his laughter, Beth squinted. "Who's the irritating young man you're competing with for the favor of the elderly father-figure? Looks like a brother to me."
Jack stopped laughing very quickly. Beth flashed him a superior smile and pointed to the first few cards. "Here," a graceful finger pointed to the center of the pattern. "The influences on your life in the distant past--the Page of Pentacles, the devoted young student-yourself, I assume--with the Emperor, the man of learning. In your more recent past, the Knight of Swords. A demanding young man, also drawn to the Emperor."
Jack gave a mild facial shrug, expression carefully neutral. But Beth was good at reading people, and she knew what probably lay beneath that calm surface. "The cards above represent your aspirations. The Three of Pentacles represents…craftsmanship, skill, the application of knowledge."
A slight smile, almost one of pride, crossed Jack's features before he frowned. "There are a great many pentacles here."
"Um, yes." Sometimes, Beth had no idea what the man could possibly be thinking. "The pentagram represents--"
"I know what it means. Continue." Jack made a curt gesture with his hand. At her expression, his look softened. "Please. By all means."
Beth shrugged; at least the man's skepticism--if not his arrogance--was on the wane. "Below is the Two of Swords. Whatever you attempted, probably with the Knight, it was his project, and it did not go well at all. Craftmanship and pride led to destruction and suffering." Jack's calm actually broke in a flinch with that. "Am I wrong?"
"I don't need to be analyzed," he muttered, "or to hear about my past. Shall we move on?"
"As you wish." Sighing, Beth composed her thoughts, looking over the final few cards. The ones she'd skipped told her a great deal about Jack himself--but the man was remarkably closed-off to self-awareness for a psychic. That wouldn't exactly help him if he were looking to be healed. "The near future, this card," she tapped the Two of Swords, "indicates a struggle. You're struggling not only with another--for power, for control--but within yourself, challenging the way of life you've chosen and deciding between spiritual matters and the temporal ones holding you back."
"Well, that sounded suitably vague."
"Jack, are you not listening to me?" Beth stabbed a finger down on the final card. "The farther future. The Ten of Swords. Suffering, plain and simple. You don't do anything by halves, do you? You're in great danger."
The magician sighed, glancing away from her. "That I already knew."
"Well, may I ask why you're here? Why here, instead of Scotland, standing up for the Emperor against the Knight?"
His eyes met hers reluctantly. "I wanted--needed to be here."
Beth thought that she knew, but had to ask. "Why? What's here?"
Jack blinked. "You, Beth. What else?"

"Sir?" Marcus' voice was infinitely gentle. "Master Crowley? Are you awake?"
"Momentarily," the old man muttered groggily, shifting aching bones into a position that allowed him to lever himself out of bed. The servant hurried to his side, slipping a frail arm around his shoulders.
I moved the world, once, Crowley thought irritably at Marcus, I don't need a servant's help to get out of bed. But he did. And he accepted it gladly. "What is it, Marcus?"
"There's someone to see you, sir."
Crowley arched an eyebrow at that. The trio of Masters had few visitors, and Crowley the least of all. It's best if the world forgets us, he'd told the younger men, repeatedly--though he doubted they'd fully agreed with him.
Much to Crowley's dismay, Marcus had to help him down the stairs as well. A thin elderly man awaited them in the foyer, lined face pensive. But that expression broke into a welcoming smile at the sight of his former Brother.
"Crowley!" Michaels enthused.
Grinning, Crowley grasped Michaels' hand. "You are a sight for sore eyes, my friend." It had been years since he'd seen any of the former Brothers. Privately, he was amazed that any of them--including himself--were still alive in this new world. Although, as linked to them as he'd been a century ago, he would have sensed if Michaels had died. "Marcus, tea for two, please."
For all his frailty, Michaels was blunt and straightforward as they sat. "I'm worried about this Master, this boy, Crowley. Dracan."
Crowley closed his eyes, exhaling a long slow sigh. "Yes."
Piercing green eyes studied his face from within a deep web of wrinkles. "I haven't lost the Art, you know. None of us have, except for the dead ones, of course--Paraseuis, Johan, al-Razi, Gunther, Massoumi." The names, spoken together, were a blow, even though Crowley knew that those men had passed. So many of us. "I have felt the Art…change when Dracan touches it with that accursed thing."
"It's just a grimoire, Michaels, albeit a very powerful one. Nothing more."
Michaels' papery lips twisted as though he was preparing to spit. "You know better, Crowley. The Art should not change. We change to accommodate its ambiance." The man placed his hands reflectively on his knees--were they young, healthy men, Crowley knew, he would be pacing. Michaels had always been filled with energy--serene energy certain of his priestly calling, but energy nonetheless. "Nothing good can come of twisting, changing such powerful forces. Do any of us, after so many centuries, even begin to truly understand the Art?"
Crowley nodded reluctantly. "I agree with you, Brother." Michaels started, both at the unwarranted title and the sad, gentle tone. "Dracan has tried to do ill with his little invention. But he is a Master…and, by now, he is stronger than I. He refuses my counsel."
"You're saying that you will do nothing? That you will allow events to play themselves out? The Art does not like to be changed, Crowley."
"I know, I know." A thin, weary hand passed before his eyes. "I'm saying that I can do nothing." Other than wait, and watch, and pray. And hope that Jack will succeed where I have failed.
Michaels nodded slowly. "All right. I won't blame you for this, Crowley. Blame is…futile, at this stage. I will pray. I know that you do not share my faith…but you should pray, too." Grimacing, he reached into his voluminous black coat. "I have something for you."
Crowley studied the object that Michaels passed into his hands. A simple, old wooden crucifix, not much larger than the length of his hand. The barest touch sent tingles through his fingertips…the cross had been very heavily spelled with protective magic.
"Protection," Michaels said at Crowley's inquiring look, "comes from a great many sources."
Crowley nodded politely, pocketing the crucifix. "Perhaps my own spiritual inclinations lie in different directions…but the gift is welcome. I have a feeling that I will need all the protection I can have before the month is out."

May, 1979
"You are completely wrong for me," Beth informed the prone figure, absently stroking his hair.
Jack grinned up at her, stretching his arms above his head. "You don't like one-hundred-and-fifty-year-old men?"
"That's one of my concerns, yes. How can I believe half of what you tell me? Demons, ancient conspiracies, immortal old men--"
"We're not immortal," Jack put in quickly, "we're simply very good at being old."
"Whatever." Beth shook her head. "What is it about you?"
"My handsome face," Jack mused philosophically, "my rugged physique, my devastating wit and charm--"
"--your modesty--"
"Of course." The pair looked soberly at each other for only a moment more before breaking down into laughter.
Sighing, her hand still in his surprisingly soft brown hair, Beth leaned over, bringing her face to his. They kissed only a moment, before she drew away, exhaling again.
I have to say it, don't I? But the words were difficult for suddenly stiff lips to shape. Instead, she led up to it gently. "Can we talk about why you're still here?"
Jack sighed, closing his eyes. "You want me to leave?" The look on his face was oddly vulnerable, as if the idiot half-believed she was kicking him out.
"Of course not." Beth shook her head emphatically, dark hair swaying with the movement. "If it were up to me, you'd never leave. But it's been a month, Jack. We've tried healing, and it's failed, and you can't sit around teaching me the Art for the next sixty years. You need to go back to Scotland--I'd be very happy if you came back here permanently afterwards, but you can't just run from Dracan. I see your dreams, sometimes. You need closure."
Jack studied the ceiling, then sighed. "No. I've made my choice, Beth. I care for Crowley like a father…but I just don't fit into the manor anymore. Dracan is...beyond my reach, and Crowley is fading. Neither of them needs me. I've been in stasis for so long. I want to be alive for a little while." His face softened at the expression of concern on hers. "I talk to Crowley most nights, with the Art. I'll know if something goes wrong. I have a few daemons--friends--still at the manor who can protect him."
Beth opened her mouth to object, then simply sighed and returned her head to its comfortable resting place on his shoulder. She should have tried harder, the woman reflected ruefully, but she really did not want Jack to leave. Almost absently, in what had become a nightly ritual for them, both hands stole up to cup his face between them. A brief thought, a prayer breathed towards the earth in the old method, a brush of the Art in the new one Jack had brought--and energy flowed through her fingertips, swirling through Jack's body, which glowed in luminescent patterns of health and Art to her eyes.
The man was so strong, in so many ways, and yet he considered himself so weak. Even those paralyzed areas fairly blazed with the Art and the strength of his spirit. Beth fed a few desultory breaths of healing energy into his frame. Her success was measured only in the easing of tired muscles, the smoothing of tension lines at his mouth and brow. Beneath her hand, a small bruise on his hip faded to dull yellow--Jack wasn't careful enough with the parts of his body that couldn't feel.
Jack was quiet for a few moments before he exhaled slowly, breath ruffling her hair. "I know you can't do anything more for me," he breathed. "But sometimes…most times…I think it's enough."

Dracan's private study within the Magisterium, always small, seemed especially cramped with all the ritual trappings he'd added. Candles blazed from every wall, and a full brazier smoked with incense at each point of the large pentagram in the center of the floor. The man himself hardly noticed, however, just as he didn't feel discomfort from his half-crouching posture. Both hands clutched the warmed, sweaty brass Star in a white-knuckled grip as the Master bent to read the lines of the ancient parchment. It was a largely unnecessary precaution--Dracan had memorized the ritual years ago, and had already triple-checked the preparations. But he was intent on his vow--this time, nothing would go wrong. He would not disgrace his title of Master.
A near-endless stream of Latin poured from his lips, almost pulled from his mouth by the energies pouring into--and out of--the Star. Dracan, though still concentrating, took a moment to smile at his opus, his greatest achievement and most wonderful tool. He'd change the world, the Art itself, with it, and Jack and Crowley be damned if they didn't approve.
Pulsing in time with the Star, the Art shifted then, and Dracan edgily began the chant that would bring the ritual to its culmination. This was the mark of Masterhood, knowing the ebbs and flows of the Art more than he knew himself, finding the perfect timing and ambiance to achieve feats young Davis would not even have expected of miracle-workers. A moment later, Dracan stopped thinking. That part of him separate from the Art, the part that was Dracan alone, dissolved under the fierce rush of energies. It was more intimate, more exhilarating, than a lover's caress. Crowley and Jack had cautioned him never to sublimate his own will to the Art so fully--men had been lost that way, even Masters--but the Star kept him whole and sane.
The spell's climax arrived so quickly it almost caught the Master by surprise. Yet the words tumbled from his lips by rote, sealing the spell. "Arcesso, abraxas!"
Once again, the shimmer in the air above the pentagram coalesced, forming a thin silvery line in the air that widened quickly. Ignored, sweat poured down Dracan's face and his overused body trembled with fatigue. But his mind was intent only upon the shadow beginning to fill the cramped, warded space--a thick, impenetrable black shadow with blazing green eyes.
I have waited for you. The voice was not audible, but sounded clearly inside Dracan's head. Name me. Set me free.
Faint warning tingled at the nape of Dracan's neck, hints of a vision received long ago. Irritably, the Master pushed aside nervousness and gazed eagerly at the submissive, powerful entity awaiting service. The thing's power, material and magical, smote him with an almost physical force. Jack and Crowley surely had never known such power…or they never would have turned away from it.
"Tiamat," Dracan whispered hoarsely. He'd thought hard about that--a spirit's name had substantial effects upon their abilities in this world. The image of a primordial chaos-deity somehow fit this being, this roiling cloud of black smoke with its piercing eyes of flame. He used one sock-clad foot to wipe away one of the pentagram's chalk lines. "That is your name. Enter this dimension, and be welcome. We have much to do." One sweaty hand slipped into the pocket of his robe, to clutch the iron pentagram--Jack's discarded trinket--briefly. "Much indeed."

The dreams were always the same.
Jack shifted in his sleep, vainly trying to escape the nightmare. He only thrashed about helplessly within his tangle of blankets while Beth slumbered oblivious beside him.
You can't walk, the old man spoke gently, eyes kind in his thin face. To Jack's remembered twelve-year-old eyes, Crowley had been a god more than a father, breathing into him hope and life and purpose. But how would you like to fly? And so he flew, swooping effortlessly in the body of a hawk, the manor spread out brick-red and green below him.
Just as suddenly, the sky went dark. Crowley's face, as he remembered it over his on that London street, twisted with contempt. Fool. Did you truly think for a moment that I would accept you as my apprentice, a Master, my equal? Pathetic little cripple! Dracan's voice in Crowley's mouth. Crowley, instead of stopping to save the young, untrained Jack, simply continued in stride, back to the Brotherhood. Jack was left only with a shilling in his hand and the taste of ashes in his mouth.
Master Crowley!
He can't help you. You're a fool, cripple. A weakling. You always have been. Dracan's voice again. Normally, the nightmare ended when Crowley, having judged the boy as inadequate, walked away. I have no use for you any longer.
Shadows surrounded him, cold hands reaching out. With a strangled cry, Jack tried to back away--but he was still twelve years old, still without the Art or even a wheelchair. Master…help me…don't leave me like this!
I don't intend to. The face flickered between Dracan's and Crowley's. Fear rapidly suffused through him. It's not a dream, oh God, it's not…
Beside the dark-robed dream-Crowley/real-Dracan figure, a towering mass of shadow materialized. Two pinpoints of blazing green fire seemed to pierce through him. Jack hadn't gotten a good look at the powerful entity Dracan had tried to summon last year…but once glance was enough to have burned the thing into his brain. The thing that stood before him right now.
With a strangled yell, Jack sought the calm of the Art. Dracan was better with dreams, he knew, but he had some small skill as well. Dreams didn't even require the focusing words of spells…reality within the dream world had its own complex laws, but it was far more fluid and changeable than waking reality. With that in mind, Jack concentrated on sending himself as far away from Dracan's sick game as possible. Answers could come later, in a time when he was himself again.
The demon-shadow thing stepped in front of him, blocking his retreat. The Art practically wept from the thing's pores; it radiated power. Jack turned to cast a betrayed look at Dracan. One could not be physically harmed in dreams, but to terrorize one's brother like this definitively crossed every line Crowley had set for his students.
That moment of looking away, that brief moment of weakness, was all that Dracan required. The shadow stepped forward, and dark cold hands cut Jack's flimsy magical shield to ribbons, reaching through his skin to envelop him. He screamed.