The First Interlude
(Wherein we see what is going on elsewhere in the city at the same time)
Meanwhile, somewhere else in Washington D.C.
The muted metallic jingle of keys against a lock served as a modest herald for Nicholas Cooper's return home. He slipped through the doorway of the rowhouse and eased the front door shut behind him, moving on quiet routine, seemingly unaware of another's presence in the room despite the ominous shifts in shadow and gloom that indicated otherwise.
Scuffing snow from his shoes onto the doormat beneath him and brushing the errant flakes from his glasses and tweed coat, Cooper broke the silence with a casual remark.
"...You're looking dour."
The shape at the far end of the living room stirred from its perch somewhere in the deep spaces of the overstuffed chair. What, at first, appeared to be little more than a rumple of black cotton fabric and a pair of desperate-looking Doc Martens slowly revealed itself to be a familiar friend and fellow mage, his normally jovial expression set in a mirthless glare. Though they did not often move in the same circles; seeing as Cooper practiced the Hermetic Tradition of Magick and his visitor had always been decidedly necromantic, both still appreciated the intellectual accomplishments of the other. The necromancer, a sallow-looking fellow with closely-shaved dark hair and sunken eyes who currently went only by the name Solidus, watched Nicholas' arrival with tense patience before acknowledging him in a flat tone.
"Pardon the intrusion, I do apologize, but I'm afraid this isn't a social call."
Nicholas inclined his head to the side in a token gesture of interest, his voice adopting a similarly business-like monotone.
"It's no concern, you're certainly welcome for conversation's sake."
He continued on his simple routine as he spoke, drawing a glove from either hand, one finger at a time, before stuffing them in their respective coat pockets.
"You'll pardon the loaded question, but what I can I do for you?"
"As much as I'd rather not," the necromancer continued, "I'm calling in a few favors."
Solidus shifted uncomfortably, settling one foot tentatively over the other.
"The denizens of this city are moving, of the more mythical kinds I mean, and I'm afraid that my own expertise in the realms of theoretical chicanery isn't sufficient for the issues at hand. I need the benefits of a second mind, one more...Medieval than mine." The sidelong smile held little humor.
A considerable amount of effort went towards keeping Cooper's face from betraying a smirk. Instead, he simply cocked an eyebrow in response.
"Go on."
Solidus slowly leaned back into the chair, letting his form sink into the cushions with a heavy sigh. His expression became suddenly wistful, distant.
"Ages ago, I used to sit up late nights with the texts of Hermes Trismegistus and The Polymath, Imhotep. I got to know them so well it was almost as though we were gathered together in a sort of coffee chat, if you could call it that. Trismegistus was so...complicated, one layer of thinking overlapping another layer overlapping another. Like a dozen minds all thinking at once about a hundred things no one else could even conceive of. It took me almost a month to figure out even why he was called the Thrice Great. Do you know why, Nicholas Cooper? I didn't. But it was his mastery of Necromancy first, that was the first great. Then Magick, the second great. The third? Glamoury. But why would he do that, I asked myself? I couldn't figure it out. Why would such a magus, the founder of Hermetic Magick even, need the mystical wisdom of fae magics? What use would he have for mere illusion and trickery? Then it hit me...the source of the magic...he needed access to the fae themselves. And why do you think he needed it, Nicholas? What was his reason?"
If Nicholas Cooper found the sudden direction of this conversation startling, he didn't show it.
"I'm afraid Glamoury isn't my area of expertise. I imagine it would suggest the fae are capable of something that neither blood nor death magics can accomplish - a narrow scope, to be sure."
The heavy coat slipped from Nicholas' shoulders with a shrug. He turned to hang it in a nearby coat closet, voicing his thought process as he went.
"From what little I understand, it's a business of riddles and stories, yes? Inspiration and creativity and realms of thought. Fantastic beasts and legends. Brothers Grimm and all that."
Pausing to slide his glasses back up the bridge of his nose with his index finger, he took a few steady strides across the room and found a seat opposite his macabre company.
"Though, Trismegistus was hardly the type to dally. Knowing him, I would presume that there's some sort of bridged gap behind it all. Some final piece to the magical puzzle. A grand unified magical theory, or some such. Am I far off?"
The mischievous glimmer that lit the eyes of the necromancer pulled his otherwise gaunt features into a sinister smile. Leaning forward, he teetered precariously at the edge of the cushion.
"Oh, Trismegistus, complicated theoretical conceptualist that he was, never set out for any kind of grand unified theory of anything. He thought the entire framework too simplistic. Something about 'unaccountable variation' or some similar quarrel."
Solidus shifted in his seat, waving his hands absently around his head, the familiar jovial enthusiasm deeply inherent to his rather odd personality once again beginning to color his words and gestures.
"No, no, but 'final piece to the magical puzzle' might not be such a bad way to put it. He found something, Nicholas. Something he shouldn't have. Something Glamoury was never meant to reveal to the world."
His voice, dropping to a near whisper, became suddenly grim and tense.
"He called it, Could've Been."
A dozen vivid thoughts and memories compressed themselves into a crease in the younger mage's brow, like a tiny crack in the mask of his composure.
"I'm terribly afraid I know precisely what it is to which you refer. But, by all means, expound."
Solidus kept his voice low in deference to the gravity of his words.
"Hermes the Thrice Great, the progenitor of your Tradition, believed that all magic was in many ways, as you put it, grandly unified. Not in the sense that all magic comes from the same place or is made of' the same stuff or anything like that, both you and I know that's complete nonsense, but in that magic continuously flows through a kind of interregnum in reality. And all foci of magic, whatever suits you, words, gestures, items, relationships, what have you, all have properties that allow us to... mmmmm...bring it into being, so to speak. Shape it into the confines of what can be real. Follow me?"
Cooper allowed himself a polite chuckle and offered Solidus a small grin in turn, his tone knowing rather than mocking.
"You're describing will-working and the principle of sympathy. Yes, I follow you."
Solidus nodded happily, seeming to enjoy the fact that his compatriot clearly didn't need the basic lessons in magical theory he had become tragically used to reciting every time a discussion such as this one presented itself.
"It might have come off as mere wordplay at first, but Hermes faced a problem. One that somehow frightened even him in the end. His personal texts, humorously I might add, often contain some version of the phrase "magic isn't real." Meaning, I thought, that it was easy to dismiss magical events because people didn't believe in things that didn't already exist in reality. But now I think that he meant that word, 'real,' differently. Magic begins in the realm of the 'unreal,' the realm of pure potential. We pull it from this potential, shaping it into the actual, to suit our needs. But Hermes discovered that there was a place where the unreal crossed the threshold into the real at the moment of conjuration, a place that doesn't exist, but a place of pure potential constantly under the continuous assault of the laws of the 'real.' The Could've Been."
Solidus continued to twitch nervously from his chair. "With the riddles of Glamoury, the word magics of the Fae, Hermes was finally able to crack the Could've Been."
Fidgeting aside, he paused for the inevitable effect of his words. "But by the time he realized what had happened...it was already too late."
Cooper leaned forward in his seat, locking eyes with Solidus from over the top of his glasses.
"What has happened?"
Solidus met the piercing gaze of the attentive mage.
"He tried to stop it, gave everything to make it right again. He thought that he would be strong enough in death to hold back what he had mistakenly brought about, which is why he killed himself prior to the building of Temple of Thoth in Khemenu in, like, 3000 B.C. or whatever it was. It was for this same reason that his writings came into revival by the Church in the Middle Ages. He discovered what could've been, Nicholas, but wasn't."
He wet his lips with a rattling cough. "I want you to think about what has happened in this city, consuming it politically and magically for near three years now." Solidus regrouped.
"It was a Name. One Name, erased first by Trismegistus and then by the Crusaders, hopefully for all eternity. Wiped out of existence during the Battle of Trees. It should never be spoken, because no one should know it. It should never be remembered, because it never existed. The Sovereign True Name of the High King, the Name given to the fae and to the High Crown by the ancients, the Aos Sí, that gave them the power to wield Glamour and bend Nature to their will. But if that is the case, Nicholas Cooper, then tell me something... If the Name had truly been erased, then it was never real, and if it was never real, then how does Glamoury even still exist?"
"Cornuto. It never even occurred to me. 'Out of sight,' I suppose." The irony of the statement was not lost on either conversant.
Nicholas pinched the bridge of his nose. "I presume, then, that whatever this... Could Have Been is, it has a close enough sympathetic parallel to static reality to potentially bleed over or be drawn upon. That's how the Name and Glamoury still have substance?"
"It's worse than that I'm afraid. Once Hermes saw that 'The Name' had remained a part of lawful fabric, he drew on every necromantic principle he could conjure up in an attempt to destroy its real-world fetters and prevent the realization of the Could've Been King. Even back then, humanity lived in terror of the fae, I guess. Unfortunately, with the annihilation of the last of the ancient Tuatha rulers during his time, the fetters no longer held any spiritual quintessence. In other words, he couldn't find the objects that anchored The Name because there was nothing to be found. But something has survived, some object or some memory, and it's obvious that it is now having an effect on the form of the Name as it is expressed now."
Pensive eyes glanced habitually around the room.
"Look, I'll be more plain. Forget Ancient Greece and Egypt. The Christian Crusaders and the missionaries back in the Middle Ages had one job. One real job anyway, and that was to take over the British Isles by annihilating the Sovereignty of the Sidhe, assassinating the Dannean monarchy, and burning the fae freeholds to the ground. And to wit, they were pretty smart about it. They brought the Thaumaturges, the…the miracle-working choir-mages trained in the Vatican, or whatever name it is they go by now. And they carried out their gruesome work by studying Hermes' texts and learning the Names of all the lower fae kings, queens, and princes so that they could wipe them out of existence. After that, they divined the True Names of the Danneans, the…the…High King and his kin, and summarily slaughtered the last of them too. It's the reason the fae so zealously guard their True Names today. I mean, Rumpelstiltskin anyone? All that survived of the purge were a few minor noble lines in the lower elven kingdoms, most notably that of King Balor, but even he was essentially rendered useless. While he may have once ruled over the Goblin Lands and the Forges, they left him as little more than a placeholder to occupy some space at the top while the Church figured out how to exterminate everyone else around him. The Crown of Bathmoora was disassembled in the Treaty and both he and the famed Golden Army were left to rot in a broken-down, old, hillside for the rest of their lives. It was all but assured that despite the fact that twins had already been born to him, neither of them would ever ascend the throne, either his or the High one, no matter how beloved of their people they might be, because the True Name of the High Crown was no longer known and therefore, the fae and their magics were at an end."
Solidus finally took a breath and tapped his feet anxiously. "But now that the B.P.R.D. is involved, things have taken an even more downward spiral."
"The Bureau of Paranormal Research? You're joking." Cooper's dry tone and incredulous glare masked the spark of anger the name stoked somewhere in the depths of his own memories.
"I'm sure I'm showing my ignorance, but even with their spiritual essence beneath the necromantic 'radar,' couldn't one still deduce the potential fetters of The Name in question through psychoanalysis? As monstrous as the fae can be, surely some of their emotional attachments and desires are collectively profound enough to be laid bare through proper scrutiny?"
Solidus said nothing of his attention to Nicholas' conflicting emotions but continued instead with the topic at hand.
"Hardly. The fae have been chaotic as of late. Surely, you've heard the news that the son of King Balor has returned? Prince Nuada, the Silverlance? Rumor has it that he has been calling in boons and amassing quite a fighting force using the Troll Markets and the Nobles Houses alike. And seeing as he is clearly not dead, as our earlier intelligence seemed to suggest, I know you will understand the potential implications here. If the True Name of the High Crown is, in fact, known somehow, he could stand to become the first living heir to the Summer Court in centuries. As the legitimate Prince of the Kingdom of Bathmoora, he would be the next in succession to The Could Have Been King. I mean, seeing as everyone in the original family is pretty much dead or dismembered."
Nicholas regarded the necromancer with growing concern.
"I told you," Solidus continued without pause. "The Name still has power and that means that somewhere, somehow, it still exists. Neither Hermes nor the Church were able to fully destroy it, try as they might. The prophesied Winter will not come as long as the Crown and the Throne are real. Glamoury is real! And all those fairy tales that we grew up on are starting to come to fruition in the here and now. And some of those things are much harder to analyze for hidden meanings and clues than you might think.
As for the Bureau, no I'm not joking. Surely by now you've heard of the motley crew they sent after the Prince. Keeping them under the radar, directing them around, going on and on about the Golden Army? It's the same thing we've been following for years. Hellboy, the fish man, the Firestarter? The current director might be an incompetent ass but he has certainly assured himself a coterie of considerable magical talent. I'd have out-maneuvered them for a piece of the Crown of Bathmoora if it hadn't been for their..."
Solidus paused to unclench his fingers from the depths of the chair's upholstered arms.
"... stupidity."
"Congratulations, you've overestimated the intelligence of low-pay government workers. I'm sure you're the first. You'll pardon me if the greater share of my concern lies with the possibility that the world of mankind is about to experience the ascension of its first elven High King since antiquity."
Nicholas' hand moved upwards from his face to rake through his hair.
"This is dire. The Could Have Been is a state of pure magical potential, with the capacity to create an entirely new world of magical existence. If Nuada is aware of this possibility, it will lend him power and purpose to a level we cannot even begin to imagine. If he finds the Name, or whoever has it, and claims his right to the Crown…this could be all out war."
The irony drew a tight chuckle from the back of Nicholas' throat.
"It's almost poetic. In the dead of winter, summer is on its way." The Hermetic shook his head slightly, a gesture of both beleaguered amusement and refocusing. "Very well. I dare say this is clearly on-par with what I owe you. Tell me what you need from me."
Solidus shared briefly in the pained amusement.
"To be straight with you, this could get very ugly, very quickly, but there are two things I need to know and I think you are my best bet in finding them out."
Solidus once again paused, his habit of glancing around the room almost manifesting as a nervous tic.
"Firstly, if Nuada is intent on realizing the Could've Been, how is he going to do it? He has, no doubt, access to at least a few talented necromancers, a fact I'm certain comes from long centuries of association with the Unseelie, but that doesn't change the fact that necromancy has limited application in cases like this. The Name is not dead, it doesn't, or it shouldn't, exist. So, he must be looking into or attempting to employ some other kind of divination. I need to know what that is or what has the potential to do that kind of work.
Secondly, it hasn't escaped me that your... apprentice...is dissociatively involved on the periphery of B.P.R.D. Something of a hobby, I hear. As is your lover by default of his position among the Undead. I need to know where the institute comes in and to what extent. Are they party to this process or working against it? And, either way, how much do they know?"
Sitting back into the now somewhat disarrayed armchair, Solidus drew in a sharp breath.
"So, can you do it?"
Nicholas turned a passing glance to his increasingly disheveled furniture.
"N'kai and Gabriel will be simple. Loathe as I am to have either of them associate with an institutional comedy of errors, they're both exceedingly sharp. If government agents are good at anything, it's failing to keep their mouths shut. The only catch is as to how far in the dark both Prince Nuada and the B.P.R.D. are keeping everyone. Sussing out the mystical cards in Nuada's sleeves, well, that might be a bit trickier. I can likely manage, but it may take time. I don't suppose you have an approximation of how long we have?"
Solidus made a noise somewhere between passive irritation and the onset of a gastro-intestinal disorder.
"I'm willing to bet he's gotten pretty far, especially if he has already secured the loyalty of his people here in D.C. I can't say I'm privy to the nature of anyone's inner thinking but I can say this, at least, in regards to our time frame, and that is that we are probably looking at months and not years. The Battle of Trees was centuries ago, Trismegistus was writing millennia before that, but I'm pretty sure that the fae have gotten used to working on more…human…time settings."
Another low chuckle punctuated Cooper's response.
"Well, that certainly eliminates the long play, doesn't it? I don't suppose you have a few wrought-iron weapons laying around, do you?"
His chest rose and fell in a soft sigh.
"Well, what of the Name? How is it appearing? Is it ghostly in nature? Spiritual? Chimerical? ...Do we even know?"
Solidus shrugged emphatically.
"I haven't a clue. It doesn't appear to be necromantic, otherwise I would've been able to draw a bead on it by now. Mostly it's just whispers that come and go. There hasn't been anything that leaves any trace indicating where we might find the High Crown itself, or the Summer Court, or by what magics Nuada could attain them. All of my attempts at Name Magic, which are, I admit, amateur at best, haven't found anything, physically or spiritually. If I had to guess, I would say that the Name is being kept somewhere, by someone or something that can read it. Nuada need only find the object or individual in question to begin the process of claiming birthright."
The necromancer trained a severe eye on his companion.
"Be careful of this thing, Cooper. I wouldn't be surprised if something violent turned up in your vicinity sooner or later. The more we poke at something like this, the angrier it's going to get and fae-kind and mages have never really had much in the way of good relations."
The soft scrape of the front door heralded the arrival of the house's other occupant, accompanied by an equally soft swear word uttered at the wintry gust that followed.
"Hmph. Beware the Ides of March, indeed!" Nicholas commented idly.
The young mage's features softened considerably as the door swung open, his voice lifting in a considerably more cheerful tone.
"Welcome home, my love. We've company."
As Gabriel, still considerably damp and wind-blown, managed to knock the last of the wet, snowy, clumps from his shoes he paused from his precarious balance in the doorway to glance up into the living room.
"Solidus?"
A broad smile from the necromancer warranted a raised eyebrow as the newcomer made his way into the warmer confines of the house. It always made him uncomfortable when the death mage looked at him like that.
"What's up?" He directed at no one in particular.
"Chatting on current events," Nicholas mused, "Some recent supernatural goings on are quite the talk of the town. It seems that the B.P.R.D. has its hands full. Any news from the night life?"
"Nnnnggg." Gabriel slumped onto the far end of the couch, facing the two mages. In contrast to Nicholas' fair, Anglo-European, features, and short, coppery-red, hair, Gabriel's countenance clearly belied his birth on the Indian Subcontinent. Long, jet-black, hair fell in thick curls nearly to the middle of his back and though he was no longer technically human, rather, what paranormal researchers would call a vampire (a word he really hated), he had retained his smooth, almost buttery, brown, complexion even several years now into Undeath.
"Don't get me started on that lot. The Bureau's nuts if it thinks half of their current investigations team are going to make it past their first year. I tell you, I never exactly appreciated my sire's regimental parenting tactics until I heard of this group and there isn't a creature out there, living or dead right now, who hasn't run afoul of some haphazard attempt by the B.P.R.D. to either capture them or kill them. Usually badly. What in pluperfect hell possessed a government think-tank to take on an agency wing?"
"A small army of supernatural kith under their watch, each of them struck with the fear of God that their destruction is imminent should they be even the slightest bit disobedient? All young enough to be completely below the radar of other, more powerful, beings and all selected from the kind of fairy-tale stereotypes that even mortal society overlooks? It sounds like every government's dream, and every citizen's nightmare. With numbers like we've heard reported, the Bureau can even afford to have a few get themselves killed and still have a workable volume."
Nicholas sat back in his seat, offering a wry smile to Gabriel from across the room.
"The question is what they intend to do with them. ...No, that's wrong, we're talking about the B.P.R.D. The real question is what they're already doing with them."
Gabriel couldn't hide the horrified expression that twitched his eyebrows and comically curled his upper lip into the semblance of a man who had just been told that the Loch Ness monster was noisily devouring his shoes.
"Are you serious!? That's...that's horrible!" Waving his hands emphatically, "I mean, I know half-demons and mermaids are not exactly stellar examples of what humanity has done with itself or anything, but honest-to-god cannon fodder? Who does that kind of thing!?...present company accepted."
Solidus merely nodded. Nicholas lifted both his hands and his voice in earnest self-defense.
"I'm simply positing that it wouldn't be a bad idea for the East Coast community as a whole to keep an eye on these goings-on, is all. The mage communities are already on edge, the fae are moving towards another end, and I imagine that what few vampires…sorry, Sanguines, remain in this city, aren't too excited about the prospect of potential hunter-types emerging with government backing and weapons funding. The traditional separations are what they are but there's no harm in looking out for one another, young or old. 'It takes a village' and all that."
Though perfectly cognizant of and accepting of Nicholas's explanation, Gabriel remained nonplussed, his sour expression betraying his thoughts.
"Hmph. Well then, what is everyone doing?"
He glanced from Solidus back to Cooper.
"I assume that's what you were talking about, right?"
Cooper nodded, his smile taking on the qualities of a grimace.
"Indeed, and the answer's fairly grim. It sounds like the fae kingdoms are resurging, of all things. But right now, all it appears to anyone is that the fae are chasing after some trinkets with the B.P.R.D chasing after them. Though, as you can imagine, as it pertains to the fae, nothing is ever just a trinket. The truly dreadful question is what follows after they've gotten ahold of whatever it is that they seek."
"You mean the museum break-ins everyone is asking about? I was just down at the Smithsonian a few hours ago because someone, well, a group of someones, smashed a car through one of the side galleries in the art museum last week. It took them awhile to figure it out with all the damage but it looks like a whole bunch of random old European artifacts from a visiting exhibition are missing. There's been, like, a half dozen of the same all over the city in the past month. Mostly old art and bric-a-brac gone. But why does the Bureau give a crap about some Medieval garage sale stuff?"
Nicholas exchanged a glance with the anxious necromancer before looking back at Gabriel.
"Why anyone wants them in particular is precisely the question. As for their general significance, it's not a pretty answer. I can give you the details if you really want, El, but it will likely ruin your night. You may want to wait until we're no longer hosting company."
He tilted his head and smiled apologetically.
"Hm." Came the deadpan reply.
Solidus hopped up from his seat with characteristic enthusiasm. "Well, I think it's time I got going. Can't leave Barlow alone for too long, never know what the legless bastard might come up with. Gabriel, nice to see you as always. Cooper, we'll speak again soon."
Affecting a polite nod, the necromancer made for the door.
"I'll be in touch," came Nicholas' response as he rose, seeing Solidus out in proper fashion.
A few moments of silence passed once the door latched shut.
"So..."
"So..."