"Please tell me about curses, Avram."
"Mister Bradshaw, a chair for the Assistant Director, please. You lot—" he gestured to the people gathering around out of duty or curiosity— "get comfortable, for I think these are things you all need to know. And since it is teatime, let us have refreshments."
With remarkable speed there were chairs and cups and mugs. A tea service appeared magically, with a coffee pot as well. Bradshaw had gone to the human realm for a fine bone china tea set of the first quality, with a restrained but elegant pattern suitable for an austere Director and his esteemed guests. Brock had taken the money from the overtime fees collected from European Branches.
"Tell us a story, Grandpa Avram!" called Knox.
"We will see what the Assistant Director needs to know. Settle down now, does anyone have a task which should be finished before we talk? Go, then, effie, we'll wait for you. Please serve, Brad. Are you stealing Frederic's macaroons again? Be sure you replace anything you take."
"These are from today's departmental delivery, Senior Jacobs. Fred's personal stores are safe. Tea or coffee, sir? Here you go. Mister Humphries, would you like tea? It's the good stuff."
Alan accepted a very good cup of tea, quite content to be served second. Rank mattered enormously in this situation. Even if Alan had been king of all the world, Avram was Eldest; with all the respect and duties of that important office honorably held and executed. The fact that Eric was a few years older in the Realm made no difference at all. For a blessed moment, there were no Reapers or Admins but only family.
The tea and coffee were dispensed, the sweets platter emptied, a shuffle as workers found places to stand or lean or sit. Solway and DePoy came from their offices. As ffoulkes returned from his desk with a clean mug for the last of the coffee, the Reapers and Admins at their desks turned to listen.
The sudden change in the noise level pulled Spears from his office. He looked about, opened his mouth and then closed it. Avram gestured, and Anton Wójcik quickly came to collect a cup of tea for his boss. Will accepted it with dignity and sipped while Wójcik rolled Will's chair out to the main area. Will took his seat in the Throne of Doom. Grell sat on the arm of his chair, carefully holding a decorated mug out to one side.
Avram put down his tea, then leaned back and folded his hands over his vest. He peered over his glasses at the interns sitting cross-legged at his feet. The only thing missing was a pair of fur-lined slippers.
"What sort of curses, Alan? Little bitter unkindnesses between humans? Those are mostly ill-wishing. Only effective in small isolated tribes, and only as long as the tribes remain isolated. More damaging to the caster than to the target, especially if the target lives outside the caster's area of influence. The curse depends on mutual belief."
"So curses can be cast only on those who believe that curses can be cast?" Marisa Solway was interested.
"The human caster can pour his malice into a curse until it gives him a hernia, but the curse will bounce right off an outsider who has his own strong belief system and does not even notice if the caster's inbred and submissive little clan shuns him. Quite a bit of a curse's effect comes from a withdrawal of community acceptance. So, yes, not effective outside the immediate tribe. Unless, of course, the caster can get Demonic backup, which inevitably backfires.
"In any case, the curse returns to the sender. It's an unpleasant surprise for a spellcaster who's never before had one of his workings fail. Then the caster, if he's not too badly damaged to proceed, has a choice. He can choose to stick to benign and positive spells, which is the wiser course. He can accept that his powers have very limited scope. He can be content to work within the tribe.
"Or he can curse the outsider again. That is dangerous. If this curse also fails, people may stop believing, which means that the next curse will fail. Soon all curses fail, and his beneficial charms fail as well, and he's not an important leader any more. He's just a malignant crackpot who needs to find a new job. The next step is to resort to human agents to accomplish what his curses failed to do.
"Now that is very unwise. Word inevitably gets out. A blessings worker is one thing to have in the tribe; a gang leader is quite another. A physical assault upon a stranger who is part of a larger organization, be it a city or an army or a trade monopoly with its own soldiers, can bring down retribution on the whole clan.
"The community mobilizes in self-defense. The caster has no more control over them, for he has shown that his magic is gone. Without the support provided by the tribe's faith and fear, the curse caster becomes a hate-filled hermit ranting in the hills. They don't last the winter. Only a story of a madman remains."
"And yet a human can lay a killing curse upon a Reaper?"
"Not without demonic backup. Is the Academy still teaching that? Novgorod dropped it a century ago."
"Please tell me about curses laid by the demons against their enemies," said Alan.
"Define your terms, please. Better still, define your worries. No answer I give can be useful without adequate information."
"I think the Thorns is a curse by the Demons, laid on Humans, to affect the Reapers, to inconvenience the Angels. We have always been taught that it was a curse invoked by a furious soul resisting being reaped. Reapers who approached the dying with sympathy were especially vulnerable." Alan paused, groping for words.
"Go on."
"But the humans could only cause such damage if they had inhuman help. The Thorns were originally rare and slow-moving. But suddenly the curse has become much more common and more aggressive. The victims include not only the young, but Reapers of great experience. My recent students might be susceptible, yes. Werther, maybe. Jonas Burns, absolutely not. I think the recent dramatic increase in Thorns cases indicates that the curse is being recast with a great deal more power and venom."
"So you think that this sudden onset is a Demonic strategy?"
"We are better trained and better armed than we used to be. Ravenings are seldom very successful. We have killed more of them than they have killed of us."
"They are still far more numerous than we are, Alan; they can bear these losses. But their tactics are changing, it's true."
"Are they using the Thorns as revenge for their losses?" asked Alan.
"This increase in frequency and severity is no longer a simple working to be cast by a single Demon on a single Human. Were all our current cases infected on the battlefield? One moment. I have quite a bit of research here. I was asked to check on missing Londoners, but to do so I went through the hospice's entire roster." Avram shuffled through a large folder of documents. "Yes. None of these were reaping in civilian areas away from the war. One could argue that a curse to inflame the natural warlike nature of Humans could increase the ferocity of their resistance to reaping."
"Excuse me, Elder," said Knox, raising a hand. "I think you're right. Our Reaps are as mean as snakes, almost all of them, and getting worse recently." There was a murmur of agreement from Keneally and Fairbairn.
Avram frowned and thought. "It would be a considerable expenditure of power. Perhaps a group of Demons could cast the curse together, if their hatred of us overcame their dislike of each other. That's as far as my knowledge goes."
"Excuse me," said Molly, "Couldn't one Demon cast the curse on a charismatic officer, and let him inflame his troops? Less effort, but nearly the same effect?"
Dutch shook his head. "Good strategy at the beginning of the war. Not now, though. At this point, veteran soldiers may shoot a ranting officer before he can order them into an impossible situation. I'd bet on a curse being thrown on large numbers of soldiers, both sides, by a group of powerful and high-ranking demons."
"However they do it, it's working," said Alan. "We are still an easier target than the Angels. Up to now the Angels have not noticed this curse in action. Suddenly it's become inconvenient."
Avram raised an eyebrow. "How is this 'inconvenient' to the Angels?"
"First, that we are hard-pressed to complete our Lists due to loss of staff. Second, that I am blackmailing a Seraph to find a cure."
"Ah, now that is important. This is the Seraph who violated your threshold, am I correct? And his superiors told him to apologize and make it right?"
"He said, um, 'a service of note, to the best of my ability and in the sight of your people,' which means somebody is judging his performance."
"I agree. Somebody who is not happy with him or the situation. Did you ask him to break the curse, or did you ask him for a cure?"
"He offered me a poisoned choice. Out of ignorance, not malice, I'm sure. I turned him down, dragged him over to the Academy Hospital, introduced him to a Reaper dying of Thorns, and specifically and ritually requested that he find a cure. Avram, a simple curse-breaking may not be enough to return a Reaper to duty. Will breaking the curse leave the Reaper with all the Thorns damage uncorrected? Because I am not going to acknowledge the boon as fulfilled if it leaves the hospice full of Reapers crippled forever."
"Good. Have you had any response from the Seraph since?"
"No. I did receive a gift which I think was from him, a tin of tea with no message or description. It has helped Reapers who have the curse, but for all we know, the benefits may be accidental. Medical's investigating it. It's mostly a painkiller. It seems to stop or slow the curse's progress but it does not reverse damage. We don't yet know how long the relief lasts."
"Ah. A gesture or an apology with unintended effects. Your question now is whether your Seraph's superiors will honor his promise in full?"
"They could argue that the gift he left was a perfectly adequate payment of a minor debt owed to a lowly Reaper."
"They could, but they won't. The Celestials do not weasel on an agreement. A service of note, they said. Honestly offered and honestly requested, even between an Angel and a Reaper. That is binding. He offered you a boon that would have harmed you, and you refused it?"
"Yes."
"He offered something he could grant at no cost to himself. Without doing his homework."
"Yes, I think so."
"Which you rejected, and proposed a request that will require some effort from him?"
"Yes."
"The demonic realm would definitely break the promise or sabotage the boon, but your Seraph cannot. Did you kneel formally, making your request with the proper ceremony? Yes? With witnesses?"
"Two witnesses. One has since died."
"Dead or alive, their witnessing was recorded. Did he vow acceptance using the old forms? No? Doesn't matter. He made the offer. You responded appropriately. It's legal. Very embarrassing if he tries to wiggle out of it. Especially at his rank. Especially if he was close to promotion. Especially since honoring it benefits his own realm." Avram looked around the room to be sure he had complete attention.
"Listen, ye Reapers. We are the balance between the Highest and Lowest realms. The Angels and Demons compete to protect or destroy us and the souls we gather. While the balance holds, they do not organize large attacks on each other. If we fail, the Reaper realm dies as the Demonic realm invades. An all-out war begins between the Celestials and Infernals. Their battles will be fought in the Human Realm. There will be no winners, few survivors, and the Highest starts over somewhere else. This you have learned in school. Remember. This is a dangerous time for all. We are perilously close to an endpoint which neither Angels nor Demons want. The Humans have already reached it, all swept into an unwinnable war; is it not so, Eric?"
From back in the crowd, Eric answered. "Aye, Eldest. Stalemate. No way out but to stand and die, or call a truce. I think they may finally overcome their pride, but not before the death toll leaves them unable to continue."
Avram turned back to Alan. "The higher one rises in the Celestial realm, the more pressure there is to behave honorably. And the harder it will be for them to pretend that you, Alan, did not."
Alan spread his hands, "To the best of my knowledge, the Seraph is not one of Azrael's or Michael's legions. I suspect he belongs to Raphael's host. Will his superiors care about a promise made to someone else's least important servant?"
"They will. And enforce it. The Seraph will be working on it now. But producing a cure in time to save our realm from collapsing — that is not guaranteed. They really should have noticed when the curse was first cast, and followed up immediately. But that was long ago when Azrael was not active in our Realm and Uriel had not yet been brought in to oversee things. Easily overlooked, back then, and an embarrassment now. We must hope that the Archangels add their efforts to our Seraph's to bring this to a quick close."
"Eric?"
"Aye, Alan?"
"I have no way to contact Sandriel. He needs to know that the tea he gave me is beneficial to Thorns sufferers. Can you talk to Color-Sergeant Bourne? I don't think the Garrison is speaking to me at the moment."
"Aye, I'll call him."
"Everybody, this is a family story. Don't spread it. Medical wants the cure and treatments ready for delivery before any announcements are made."
Spears stood up from the Chair From Which Doom Is Delivered. "Everyone. Silence is declared on this subject until Medical has spoken. If word gets out, I will know where it came from. I will follow up, and the informant will be found and confined until the cure is delivered. Then, if they are lucky, they will be fired with a mark on their record that they will never live down."
As the Reapers turned back to their work, an intern whispered to another. "If they're not lucky?"
His Senior heard him. "Slept through that class, did you? Director Spears has the power of life and death over his Reapers. Admins working here are subject to the same rules, and in this case DePoy would back him up. The tattler would be scythed, erased from the rolls and fired off to Hell before lunch. Spears has used it twice."
"Story time, senpai?"
"No. Not until you graduate and are accepted as a London Junior. This is London business, intern, and you are not yet London."