Fallen Age, Golden Age: Sparks 1.3

At school, Gloria handed the charm to Stacy.

“So, this’ll like, make him love me?” Stacy asked.

“No.” Gloria shook her head. “No. Nothing can make you love.”

Well, there were texts she’d read that implied you could make someone show love, but they hinted it wasn’t real love, and her Grandmother had pulled out the pages talking about it. From the few comments that were left…

Gloria got the feeling the things you were calling to weren’t interested in Love.

The charms she’d learned to make didn’t call out the spirits. She’d infused it with confidence and approchability.

“You have to do the work,” Gloria said. “This gives you an in, nothing more.”

“I bet it doesn’t do anything else,” Stacy said. “I mean…”

“Okay, I’ll just—“

“No, gosh, I was just kidding!” Stacy said, huffing. Gloria grinned and gave her the charm, in return for twenty bucks. Gloria didn’t need it, but not only did it keep her from being asked by everyone, it helped in the ritual. Stacy had given something she saw as important, and in return the ritual would work better.

And then they were being called in, with every student having to check in with the Pentex Attendence App, which was designed to keep them safe and save the teachers from having to take rolls.

Most of the time, it just held everyone up at the entrance, and ensured they were late, so everyone was in a bad mood, but according to Kyoko’s gossip, the school got extra money for them.

Kyoko loved gossip, especially at the expense of the school administration.

Gloria walked past the school announcement board. There were a few new clubs including…

“Get credit for PE and Art, and come Dance the Spiral with us?”

Art’s useless and I hate PE so…  Carla reached out and then suddenly a slim hand touched hers.

“You don’t want that,” Kyoko said, looking serious. “Trust me. It’s bad news.”

“Two classes…”

“Yeah, why would the school give you two classes if you didn’t have to do more work? Plus, I saw the teacher. He was checking out every girl’s tits.”

EW. Gloria pulled her hand back and blinked. Kyoko… seemed relieved?

“So where’s Michael?” Kyoko said. “You two love each other. You should be here, together, writing a story for the ages!”

“Really?”

“Yeah. I’m bored, I wanna see someone get zinged for a PDA.”

Gloria blinked. Where was Michael?  He’d said he had a cold yesterday, but Michael didn’t let anything stop him. “I’ll call him after school if he doesn’t come.”

“Will you rush to his side? Will you tell him sweet nothings…”

“Yeah, yeah,” Gloria rolled her eyes. “Let’s get to class.”

As usual, Gloria was bored out of her mind. She knew all the classes, got “As” but the advanced classes were always full. So she just spent her time trying not to look too bored.

“As we know, the Civil War was triggered by predatory Northern Economic practices, practices that only continued once the freed slaves proved unable to work without a disciplined framework…”

Gloria tuned it out. It had been the same unit since she’d been in Junior High.

No Michael. She waited until lunch and called him. But no response.

Dammit. If he’s on some game and forgot school, I’ll… She shook her head. The last class of the day was an assembly talking about the new police initiative.

“Reporting on crime.”

“Remember, many homeless can engage in criminal acts and are often homeless because they have committed crimes in the past,” the SRO said. “Don’t give them any money, and if they approach you, remember you can help them, and your neighborhood by calling our Vagrancy Reporting Line, which will allow them to be taken into custody and transported to a facility where they can get the help they need.”

And then it was finally, blessedly, the weekend. Gloria grinned as she passed Stacy, who was talking to her beau with a ton of confidence.

Probably could have saved the magic.

Grandma wasn’t in. She left a note that she was with the Connerstons.

Grandma, don’t be a midwife. She’d already gotten in trouble for that once.

But that left Gloria to do the work. Give the silly crystals to the ladies who came in and talked about the “higher mysteries” and Ancient Egypt as they paid 10.00 for crystals dug up from a quarry that had never been near the pyramids. Listen to the old guy going on about secret knowledge while he tried to get a look down Gloria’s cleavage (she kept her hand close to the pepper spray for that guy), and then sell him a book on tantric magic written by a fading porno star… A normal day.

But Grandma was still gone, and she had hours to go now that the sun was setting and the streets were emptying, and Gloria couldn’t go outside.

She was sweeping the floor when there was a hammering at the door, and Gloria nearly jumped out of her clothes. She turned around, hoping she had remembered to lock the door and…

“Michael?”  She ran to the door and opened it, and then Michael fell into her. He was bigger than his girlfriend, blond hair contrasting with her dark hair, and she pulled him inside before she closed the door. “What’s wrong—“

“Got… got bit. Got sick… I—“

“We’ve got to get you to the hospital!”

“Can’t! The voices, the voices, rats, rats in the walls, I was bit by a rat, they talk to me, say I’m going to die or be one of them… I saw one, human but not human sitting and talking…”

Gloria was about to tell him she was calling 911, when… A shivering feeling ran through her. She looked at Michael. Really looked at him.

He wasn’t Tom. He was worse than Tom. There was something running over him, the mental image of his skin deforming as a thousand little rodent forms ran under him.

Oh God, Something’s possessed him. Something…  Grandma wouldn’t answer, the hospital wouldn’t help…

Gloria dragged Michael to the back room, where Grandma had her circle. She put him in the middle of it, working out the few rituals she knew to shield him from the possessor.

Nothing. It was already in him.

A lit candle, a ritual for luck and purification. “Be gone, power of darkness!” Gloria chanted.

Nothing. It was in him. Michael whined and frothed and gasped.

Gloria kept working. She pulled out the books Grandma forbade her to read and read them as fast as she could. There were Names in there. She used them.

But none came to her. None wished to barter.

Michael was now just drooling, lying on his side. Something was happening, and she needed to understand WHY…  But she wouldn’t give up. She would understand.

Why was the room growing brighter? Gloria didn’t know but looking down at her friend… boyfriend… more… her mind whispered to her… she saw.

It was an infection. But one playing off of his own spirit. Connecting him to other spirits and they knew they were being watched, screeching in anger. She could see them. She could understand….

A way to expel them from him, without harming Michael.  Gloria had a vision of her touching him, banishing the plague with but a thought, but she couldn’t do that…

But she could try one of the other rituals. It was a healing spell. She’d tried it before, but now… around Michael, she scribbled symbols, ones that she had barely understood, and now she couldn’t believe her hands had been so shaky. The sorcery was one to banish illness, that even her Grandmother had never used very often, because it hardly ever worked. But now she moved, surely and quickly, somehow finding the pots of special ink that she knew had never been in the store. Glowing power gyred and she felt lighter and stronger…

Then she completed the circle.

And spoke the words.

“BEGONE SPIRIT OF ILLNESS! BEGONE TORMENTER! BY THE SEVEN WORDS OF HEALING I COMMAND YOU…” And then light, bright light, brighter than before, as bright as the sun flared, and Gloria spoke strange words that she’d never thought about. She flung down her hands and spoke the last words, and suddenly a towering mass of spirits, chittering rats, ratmen, and other things whirled around the room, screaming curses at her, and then it was gone…

And there was Michael. Shivering. Moaning… But cured.

And then Gloria looked at herself in the mirror. At her glowing form… and a stylized golden symbol on her forehead.

The symbol of twilight.