Bargain From Strength

The smoke curled like stale ashes in the back of his throat. For a moment he thought that he might have swallowed bone and dust sometime ? somehow ? in the night, but the memory of how the night had been spent flit through his mind in quick order and put away any thought of ash; that was, without raising some other alarming, slightly disconcerting prospects. Ones that he was fairly certain had no basis in reality. The first relief to come to him of the morning, hopefully with many others to follow it in short order. That was the idea of this, at the core of it. Hopes, reliefs, sanguine paths onwards. As for the night itself and how it had considered itself spent... well, that was another boundary denied, hewn and pressed roughly into the entropic irrelevances of limbo and the peripheries of the unkind, inattentive edges of what only remotely passed for aspects of his attentions. Another act in spite of Terminus, another middle finger to his markers.

And there would be more boundaries still to cross before he was done here.

The thought brought a smile to his lips; and he reminded himself about victories too easily celebrated. Something about chickens and eggs, although the translation was always a little clumsy and when he had first heard it in Italian ? and then in Greek ? it hadn't made the most sense... Still, the point remained sound. Premature jubilation. Still, the smile lingered upon his lips. He slipped the pack of cigarettes out of his pocket and looked it over. Cheap Brazilian cigarettes. You could taste copper, iron and ash every time you smoked one ? he didn't dare imagine what the copper or the iron came from, but the ash was obvious enough. The tar came later, like a thief in the night that sneaked in slowly where it was unwelcome, down the back of his throat and into his heart and his soul. Black poison to mar and muddy the essence of his being and the fabric of what divinity he held by dint of his humanity.

No wonder his throat had tasted like death waking up. It was just a little difficult to remember the cigarettes sometimes.

He pulled one of the cigarettes out and looked over the ratty paper that bound it, his thoughts flitting briefly to how many things must have died and been crushed into the adhesive residue. The thought dithered like a disease, lingering amidst those who would wilfully shun and dismiss it had it been within their capability; but instead it remained, a pounding, pulsing presence. Raphael could almost see the imagined hei of the passed creatures rising from the wrapping. No such hint did as much as glint across the surface of the paper; he didn't even look. The imagining had simply been to strong to dismiss ? for the first moment or two. In the next, he simply placed it to his lips and it was finally placed aside when the flame caught the tip of the cigarette and lit it, any remnants of the creatures' essences seared away in one, screaming instant in which he committed to the vice one last time.

It wasn't the one he needed. Not this time around.

It was a primer. Something to take hold of, to prepare him, distract him. Something to take the edge off of what came next. He had the heroin prepared for hours; lying there on the bed like a sharp accusation of his neglect. The mother gave him his body and he was putting this trash into it. It didn't matter which mother he thought of ? the one he barely knew and was busy on her cruise, the one who Cain fathered Malach on, the mother Earth whose harmonies he traipsed ? it came to the same thing one way or another. He was raping the harmonies of his chakras with that filth. Says the person who smokes twenty silk cut a day, he reminded himself, a variety of colourful suggestions as to just where exactly the supposed accusation could go and what it could do on its way there. Pathetic fallacy was his least favourite personification, and he had more important things to consider at that moment than what was 'good' for him.

He needed it. And needs must when the devil drove.

The needle felt like sin going into his skin. Never had he ever known a more familiar feeling. He and sin were old friends. Raphael's lip curled back as he the poison spilled into his veins, mingling with his blood. A searing flash ran through his mind. Blinding white. Aestheses from the future. One day he'd know a poison much worse in his blood, blending so closely to it that it might as well be his very own ichor. That was the future, though, and precognition was just as much a bitch as postcognition. He shunted the images away and focused on the present, on the filth that was flowing through his veins in the here and now.

And tried his very best to enjoy it.

A vice wasn't very much use if you couldn't enjoy it. Otherwise it was more of an obligation of type; something that you did because you felt as if you had to. It was an obligation of sorts in this regard, but he couldn't very well let on about that; not even to himself. Three months ago Raphael had made himself forget that he forced himself to start smoking and pick up the vice; a little bit of earthen hypnotism could work all manner of wonders that most people were wholly unaware of. The soil itself could take your memories ? for an eternity when you passed, or just for a little while if you asked it to while you were still alive. Raphael's memories were something of a burden ? one that seared the soil and ran it red from within the core of its own essence, painted by poor Abel's blood for the weakness of falling to his brother. There was a price for everything, though, and the touch of a wound as old as Abel's was more than enough of an ancient offering and power for the soil to gladly accept the pain that came from it.

Funny. For the briefest moment, those months back, Raphael had almost been certain that he could feel the soil screaming as he pressed the memory upon it.

And then he had started with the cigarettes. It hadn't been his intention for the vice that he wanted to lose the memory of and conceal; that wouldn't have done him much good at all. If he couldn't remember why he had first touched the foul things then it wouldn't ever be much by way of use to him. Raphael still remembered that he intended to quit the cigarettes. Instead it locked away why he intended to quit and the fact that he had always intended to quit, that he had taken up smoking in the first place solely for this reason ? that was the memory that he had offered to the soil. Had he approached the being he intended to supplicate still bearing that memory, it would have likely been carried as a point of offence rather than an offering. Even taking the kind of power a being like this wielded out of the equation, that wasn't the smartest move in a strange, foreign land.

One of the most prominent currencies of the world was the currency of favours.

Favours held a karmic weight that bore their own centre of gravity; ignoring them and refusing to honour them typically ended... poorly for people. Not necessarily as a result of any action taken by the person who was owed in the circumstance, but karma had a way of levelling itself out and seeing that all debts were, one way or another, paid. Both on this plane and the next one. As a result, most people who were of much worth, knowledge or wisdom tended to repay any debts that they owed; and to always repay any favours they had been granted. It was the currency of favours that allowed Raphael to move fluidly from place to place and not find himself any worse off for it; you needed some means to work your way across the world and still manage survival. Most people used money, but Raphael didn't want the name Varano to come up where he went. Others used magick as a blunt instrument in such senses. It seemed like a betrayal of the disciplines that Raphael had dedicated himself to, and in the long run it was more costly than any other possibility.

Which left favours. Favours owed, and around the world, Raphael was owed almost more than could be easily reckoned; not that he was ever reckless enough to allow himself to forget a single one.

Here, though, he wasn't owed many. Raphael had been in Brazil for one night. He was owed five more favours than twenty-four hours ago, but none of those would help him where he was going. They were still something to bear in mind, but... for the moment, the cigarette was where his best bet lay. He went through it quickly ? a rushed endeavour so that he wouldn't have to endure the taste for too long ? and flicked the spent stub aside. Natural efforts alone hadn't been enough to make him enjoy the cigarette, so he had to delve into the energies that he had cultivated the night before to make himself enjoy it. It wasn't really what those energies were for; it was a little bit low and left him feeling just a touch cheap, but it got the job done, and at that stage, that was the only thing that mattered. With that, the final preparations were set; the only thing that remained was the departure and the holocaust.

"Going?" the man at the doorway asked. It had been a short journey from Australia to Brazil. A little more than eight thousand miles wasn't something that passed without notice under more typical circumstances, but certain people had the unique privilege of defining their own circumstances, and a story ? a song ? could carry you further than most people could imagine in nothing more than an instant; a brief imagining. For some things, a brief imagining was all that it took. A tiny smile touched the edge of Raphael's lips and he glanced over to the story teller, the singer, brushing his fingers back through his hair. "Are you a mind reader now, Thomas?" he chuckled softly. A smirk touched Thomas' own lips and he folded his arms across his chest. "We'll leave the ash. We'll leave the dust. They tell enough in their own right ? and what they tell me is that, considering what you intend, you're crazy." The man paused for a moment, twisting his lips to one side.

Fleetingly, it looked like he intended to warn Raphael off. Relief settled in the boy's heart when instead all he did was press on with his point.

"A cigarette always tells you something. That one said goodbye." His smirk seemed to infect Raphael's demeanour also, as a similar one flit across the boy's face. "Maybe," Raphael mused. "There's still a long way to go." Thomas sighed, resting his hand against his forehead. The message was so palpable it was almost carved into the forehead he was covering. 'Oh, youth. Jesus, Heaven and Morningstar ? if any of them give the first little damn ? save us all from them'. "A long way to go. You can say that again. Should I swing around again when you're done?" Another little smirk; this one faded, scant enough as if emotions themselves from here would be a currency of their own, and it was a frugality that would carry Raphael through the rest of his venture. He set the pack of cigarettes down on the table ? he wouldn't be needing any of the others; and waste not, want not ? before glancing back to Thomas. "You haven't brutalised me enough, you thug?" he chuckled, pulling his coat on.

It wouldn't do much to protect him from the sweltering heat of the Brazilian summer, but the sigils and smeared soil that covered the inside of the coat attested to the fact that there was more than one kind of protection.

"What happened to the vaunted stamina of the young?" Thomas responded with an arch of his brow and a soft laugh. Raphael gave a slight shake of his head. "Experience is a bitch I've yet to shape a collar for. Yet. It'll happen. I'll find my own way from Brazil." Raphael left the man with a kiss on the cheek and the promise that the man wouldn't remember him come the morning; he owed the man nothing more. He had shared with the man just as much as the man had shared with him, and the passage and knowledge that he had granted Raphael had been met with energies and knowledges of his own. He couldn't linger on his brief exchange with Thomas beyond what he had learned from him if he was going to press cleanly on to the next stage of his intention and purpose; which was why Raphael hadn't extended anything more to the man than the man had to him. Only with nothing owed could he make the clean break he needed, without any emotion following him in his stride.

And as Raphael left, he started a song.

Now plans came together with the promise of something truly terrible coming to snap at his heels if he played his hand wrong ? in which Raphael felt the comfort of his confidence (and to him, it was confidence and not conceit) that nothing would go wrong. Perhaps that was what Thomas had meant when he lamented the nature of youth. Brazil was a long way away from Australia, but once you knew about it and believed in it, the song was everywhere. With it, so were the lines whose path the song had first followed, filling all of Creation; crafting creation itself with its every touch, vibration and hum. Thomas had spoken of the song; and with the song, he had brought them to Brazil. Raphael had picked up the words and the tune easily enough, but the nuances had slipped through his fingers to begin with. That was fine, though; first attempts were rarely characterised by a note of finality.

Where knowledge was concerned, holding Raphael at bay was an effort in futility.

There were few discourses that held the same manner of honesty as those that were marked by intimacy; and fewer still paths through which knowledges could most wholly be granted. If the person with whom your discourse was shared was willing to extend the knowledge, the energies that passed between you through the course of the exchange could be drawn, cultivated, and shaped to envelop the both of them, taking the knowledge on as his own. If they were unwilling and your will was stronger than theirs then you could manage it still, but that was intellectual theft with no doubt about it and seemed too close to a rape of providence for Raphael to ever consider it. Every gentle brush, every harsher touch, every shade and shape and instant within the exchange brought another one of those nuances that he had missed earlier.

Now, a day later, he could see every one of the notes in the air around him.

The humming was tangential really. It was ambiance; but no seventeen year old could touch onto any kind of magicks without a slight sense of grandeur and performance. As subtle as the magicks that he tended to carry himself with were ? subtle enough that most would hardly consider them any such thing; mysticism would seem a better word for them, a silly, sceptical word that people often leaned toward as if this was his religion despite the fact that there lay no worship within it for him ? Raphael still held a touch of that about him. You couldn't spent time learning from John Zatara without developing a sense of stagemanship if it wasn't there together. The humming had no bearing upon the magick itself; but it didn't distract him from it, either. The song line opened itself to him, and Dream Time held his stride as it drew him into its tide. It was under the tide that he sundered ? a sweeping wave that washed over Raphael ? but it wasn't control that Raphael wanted here. It was the draw of instinct.

Instinct was guided by synchronicity. Synchronicity had already mapped his path out for him.

It was a reflection upon which he found himself. Light sparked off of his face, shattering the moment that it traced away from him; but it was only in lies that light broke, and from that Raphael recognised the sharpness of the angles of the reflection. A serpent's eye was perhaps one of the less comfortable things to find yourself characterised as. It burned, galled, blistered within his essence ? he knew truth at his very core, and an aspect of him existed simply to serve truth. The snake saw only lies so that it could weave only lies; its breath, life and nature was that of deceit. But you had to roll with the punches and play the cards you were dealt. It just happened that his cards sucked. The deck was stacked against him; he no longer recognised his own truths or his own intentions. His motivations and his plans were cast to the wind, left unable to recognise his own truths. And it was liars that doubted the most; he doubted himself, he doubted his reason for being there.

With every thought that came to him, he doubted its purity.

It was unseemly that doubt take him after so much effort and toil. Rational thought wished to lead him down that path, but he reminded himself that it was the deceit that would have him take to rationality; and deceit had no place in the realm of emotion (a deceit within itself, but when all you saw were deceits you quickly began to recognise them as truths). He looked into Mami Wata's dark eyes as she held the serpent's head to her and gazed into its own eyes. The smell of sex curled around them rankly, the waters that surrounded them unable to wash them away; and within that, so much of her power lay. Raphael had already seized power of that shade; he found no disconcertion there. And he knew the truth about her. No goddess was she, despite the robes that she dressed herself in, the names that she went by and the worship that she had claimed. Claiming godhood and walking in those footsteps was a protection that few demons thought to claim, but it was a genius gambit all the same. She had to be granted that much. He was still left disadvantaged, though. Being shaped by deceit left him almost crippled.

He wasn't lost, though. Bargain from strength.

Then the vices occurred to him. At their core, they were things mired in deceit. People lied to themselves every day about them. About how much damage they were doing to themselves about them. About when they would quit. About the nature of the vice. About whether they were addicted or not. Perhaps that was the only reason that the vices came to mind at all; the vice that had been taken up those months back for the very purpose of offering it to her. No words passed between them. The bargain was set. She claimed the vice; and with neither permission nor precedent, she claimed the energies he had cultivated from the intimacies of the passing night. Hook line and sinker. The energies of intimacy had been dangled before her, and she hadn't been able to resist. You couldn't touch primitive demons for their sheer power, but intelligent though they could be, they never were the brightest as far as pure cunning went. And you couldn't take something that was born of intimacy without affording a little intimacy yourself.

That's where she screwed herself. Literally and figuratively.

He would laugh, if he could risk it. He could laugh it he could remember how. But he was still just the eye of the snake and until he saw the endgame, he had to keep his pokerface. It still made him want to smile, though. It wasn't just superior will that could draw knowledge through intimacy. It was the sneakier bastard, too; the one who could slip through the back door with the bounty of noesis. Like fucking Hell and being left pregnant with its secrets as your prize for your conquest. It was almost an intellectual rape, sure, but Hell had practically invented rape. If it had been a human, he would feel disgusted with himself. Maybe. Probably. But a demon? He had no compunctions there. Then the waters left him. He was no longer the eye of deceit; the song had left him within the midst of the Chapada Diamantina, and bristling with offence. The demon had acted as if he hadn't caught her with her pants down, as if he didn't know what she was.

But he was where he wanted to be. And he got what he wanted out of the bargain. For now, that would be enough. Offences could be set aside. For now.

Raphael gave a faint shake of his head and he pushed through the verdant into the clearing; the crystal water of the Cachoeira da Fuma?a falls ahead. A nascent aperture just waiting to tear open and spill over the world. Or ? if someone knew how ? to be permanently sealed before it got the chance. Pregnant with Hell's secrets. Nothing like putting your first born to good use.

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