A/N: Thank you to those that pointed out I accidentally posted chapter 9 twice. This is the real chapter 10.
I am not afraid of death. I just don't want to be there when it happens. - Woody Allen.
Duke:
Being dead was both boring and scary. I don't recommend it to anyone. Maybe Buddha hadn't yet replaced me on the karmic wheel because he was trying to decide if I should still be human. Maybe I needed my soul released in some rite. Whatever the problem was, it wasn't getting solved by lying here, but I didn't seem to be able to do anything else. Perhaps this was a last attempt for me to reach true enlightenment. Sadly, I felt as though I was too attached to the material world for that to occur anytime soon. Perhaps it would change once I saw my fingers fall off. How long did decomposition normally take, anyway?
Noah and Julia came periodically and did weird things to my body, but no more monsters consumed parts of it. Usually they ensured my eyes were closed so I had no clue what the hell was going on. I was becoming really detached at this point, and didn't care much. It was hard to fill the blank space that was my mind with myself anymore. I wondered if this would be what it would be like to meditate so deeply that you forgot yourself, but only briefly, and the thought of my consciousness, my sentience being separate didn't really matter to me anymore.
My eyes were closed and then opened and I found my coffin had been moved. The sky was as fractured as the pieces of my mind, broken up by crazed black cracks. Very slowly I realized I was staring at tree branches, and that I was no longer in the cave. I looked down. Yep, if your body was a temple, I still stuck in the body of doom. Would Dr. Jones come and rescue me? I'd even settle for Dr. Carr, who was actually gnawing on one of the ropes that tied me to Julia. I wanted to wave to her, but I couldn't move my fingers.
I could hear Julia and Noah talking about something. Troubles were back, and it was their sovereign duty to protect humanity, blah, blah, blah. I wondered why the trees needed to know this particular bit of information. Julia then started saying that the Afflicted would be their own downfall. God had given to her the perfect tool to pacify the Troubles. Nope, never should have told her. Oh well. It's not like she can make me do anything.
Suddenly she called my name. She still had the middle name wrong. I felt something tugging on my soul. I could ignore that. I was starting to get down with cosmic oneness.
"Lemuel Ephus Crocker, Rise!" she and Noah commanded in concert. SHIT! That I could not ignore. It felt like I was being wrenched up by one of Gerty's winches. I could only imagine fishhooks buried in my heart that were suddenly pulled tight, forcing me to follow. Somehow my corpse was on its feet, and I had nothing to do with it.
In front of me Nathan was tied to a tree, looking particularly pissed off. Yeah, Nathan, if I could die right, I would, but I somehow managed to mess it up too. Call an exorcist.
Please.
"Send this Damned One back to Hell! Open up the earth and let it swallow him, Lemuel Ephus Crocker!" I could feel my muscles spasm and something in my mind straining, but no cracks tore open the earth. Sorry, Julia, that was someone else's Trouble, not mine. My body was trying to tear itself to pieces to do her bidding though, and the strain on my mind was giving me a hellacious headache. Just because I couldn't didn't mean I wasn't going to kill myself trying for my master. I didn't want to, I didn't want to hurt Nathan, but I couldn't seem to stop myself.
Eleanor was trying to pull apart the ropes, but upon seeing me answer to my master's calls, she stopped fighting. Instead she took the rope carefully into her hand and seemed to be trying to push it. The pushing motion seemed to loosen up the three thick braids that made the rope whole, and she stuck in a hand. It disappeared. She began sinking into the rope, and I could feel her in the bond like a warm current. She was trying to smother me, to stop me from killing Nathan. I welcomed the attempt.
"What's wrong, Julia? I thought you said that he could do this!" Noah shouted, waving his hands angrily in front of my face.
"I don't understand, he should be able to! Nathan said he thought he was the one that had caused the cracks all over town, and had collapsed the lighthouse!" Julia turned to me, and she got a crazed look to her. Her eyes had the white all the way around them, and she was baring her teeth, like a dog about to bite. "Lemuel Ephus Crocker, I command you to send Nathan Thadeus Wournos into the earth!"
Now that I could do, and without killing anyone. Have to love overbearing ritual phrasing. I sublimated Nathan, who looked very shocked to see his body disappear in a white mist, and deposited him into the smuggler's caves 2 miles north of Haven. Score one for me, I got rid of Nathan, and he was about a ¼ mile into the earth. Command obeyed, sort of.
The awful pressure in my head and heart eased immediately when Nathan's ropes slumped to the base of the tree he'd been tied to. I celebrated by falling over and wondering what the hell was with Julia and my name. No one had actually called me Lemuel except my mother and Uncle Ephraim. Eh, it's not like it mattered that much anyway. There was a couple of inches of snow on the ground. Hmm… Snow should be cold. It wasn't.
Noah walked over. "That appeared to work better than the cracks. He completely dissolved. I suggest you practice with a few trees so that you learn your puppets limits, though, before we use him to remove more of the Afflicted. I'm going back to the mainland." He stomped out of my line of sight.
"Lemuel Ephus Crocker, Rise!" My corpse lurched to its feet again.
A/N: And this was about as far as I got into the story before life exploded as it is wont to do. When it finally calmed down a little and I could write more, neoxphile told me she had this story idea... and we wrote Untangling. She has another couple of ideas now... but I told her I wanted to finish this story. Somehow, I have until the middle of next month go get a chapter out to her... O.o
As winter settles in around us in the Northern Hemisphere and Summer garlands her warmth to folks in the Southern Hemisphere, I wish you all the best during whatever holidays you may be celebrating, or even if you aren't celebrating any at all. Or as Duke might quote -
Through the working of Great Compassion in their hearts,
May all beings have happiness and the causes of happiness,
May all be free from sorrow and the causes of sorrow;
May all never be separated from the sacred happiness which is sorrowless;
May all come to peace without too much attachment and too much aversion,
And live believing in the equality of all beings.
Namu Amida Butsu.