Today, I've got a bit for you guys that didn't make it into Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics. This would have been the last dream bit in the dream sequence in Chapter 12.

The wind ceased. "I'm right here," a quiet voice said, right next to her, and Alex almost jumped, turned to face him. It was Justin all right, but he was dressed in black from his toes to his mandarin-collared neck, even his hands covered in black gloves. He wasn't looking at Alex, but staring ahead, mouth straight and serious, eyebrows faintly contacted with worry. Alex turned to see what he was looking at

- and there was another Justin. This one was in the lair at their parents' home, but all the furniture had been pushed away, off against the walls, and he was stooped in front of a circle, drawn in chalk on the lair's floor, symbols and glyphs drawn in it that Alex didn't recognize, and candles burning at the edges of the circle. To his right, their father lay on the floor, sprawled with his eyes closed, asleep or unconscious or dead, she did not know which.

"What -" Alex started, but Justin-in-black interrupted.

"I've had this dream before. Watch." His hand bumped against Alex's, and then he took it, held on with a tightness that hurt, but Alex simply squeezed back, grateful for the touch.

Justin-in-the-lair stood and started to speak, his lips moving in words that Alex couldn't hear. She noticed then that that Justin looked older, his face thinner, his eyes surrounded by dark circles, like he hadn't slept in days. Still speaking, he took a knife from his pocket, used his thumbnail to pull out the blade, then pushed the tip into the flesh of his thumb, squeezed it against his fingers so that blood dribbled forth, let it drip down onto the floor.

The room shuddered then, somehow without moving, as if the world itself had rippled, and Justin-in-the-lair looked away as some thing appeared in the circle, with the body of a man, the head of a rooster, and twin snakes for legs.

"What is that?" Alex asked, blinking at the thing. It spoke to Justin-in-the-lair, the mouth moving, but making no sound that Alex could hear.

"Abraxas," Justin-in-black said. He paused for a moment, licking his lips, then recited, "Abraxas speaketh that hallowed and accursed word, which is life and death at the same time. Abraxas begetteth truth and lying, good and evil, light and darkness in the same word and in the same act. Wherefore is Abraxas terrible." He paused again, swallowed. "That's from the Seven Sermons to the Dead."

"So… he's some kind of demon?"

Justin-in-black nodded, still not looking at Alex, and swallowed. "Yeah. Some kind."

Alex looked at him, her expression doubtful. "So… what are you doing summoning him?"

"I don't know." Justin-in-black turned to look at Alex, and she saw his eyes then, and they were stark, glossy black orbs, without white or iris. "I've had this dream many times. But I always wake up before it ends."

So, some explanation here: my original concept for Justin re-empowering himself was that he would be using demonic magic. This is hinted at in the epilogue to Fun and Games, with "the thing he had conjured" and "The hardest part - not the worst, merely the hardest - was cutting his hand" - the 'thing' being the demon (at this point a very minor one, an imp if you will) and the worst part being bargaining with it.

Of course, to get the level of power he would have needed, Justin would have to deal with something much stronger than an imp… thus the foreshadowing above.

Why didn't this go in? I wrestled with it for a day or two, but in the end, I felt uncomfortable tying myself down to something this specific. I still didn't know what Justin was going to wind up fighting, or why. I wasn't sure what the consequences of Justin's dealing with demons would be (well, I had ideas, but they seemed too harsh). And I know the way I write - I have certain points in mind when I start a story, but often, those wind up changing as I write.

So, as much as I liked what I'd written here, I ultimately left it out. I'm glad I did - by the time I made it to the empowerment in Normal Life, I had a clear idea of what Justin was going to do, and how the powers he gained would be different from his former wizard powers.

If I'd known I wasn't going to end up using the full empowerment ritual, I would have revealed more in the two times we saw it… but then, hindsight is twenty-twenty.