Time to go

It’s funny how when you know what you want, the world so often hands it to you. Or maybe not funny, anymore, since few things in my life seem to be random chance anymore.

What’s more true, I think, is that for all of human history, someone has been pulling the strings that make up the fabric of the world, drawing things into place for this endgame. It’s uncomfortable to realize that my life is one product of thousands of years of manipulation of causality, but I’ve pretty much given up on that not being the case.

Perhaps it’s more than thousands of years; perhaps substantially less. All I know is the way my Working affects the world around me, bringing me the things I desire and letting me alter reality to suit my will, and the fact that I see similar patterns of desire and manifestation on a much larger scale in everything that happens around me. Someone is manipulating the world on a much grander scheme than I or any of the Old Ones I’ve met are capable of.

They’re playing a grand game, whether against themselves or some other. And we’re coming to the endgame. It’s drawing to a close.

Sarai was one of the Order. She was an Old One, as the mountain lion trick proved- very few humans can master shape-changing, it seems to be a sort of mental block that comes with being born into a physical body- but she was one of the ones who regard themselves as angels of the Christian God. Despite no real solid evidence that He exists (say, Him manifesting to any of the other Old Ones), there’s a fairly large contingent who maintain that he’s out- or up- there somewhere, and Sarai was apparently one of them. We didn’t figure it out until she brought the rest of the Order down on a few of us while we were meeting with a reclusive pantheon in Georgia. You’ve seen on the news how that went.

I’ve never been responsible for starting a war before.

Quetzalcoatl (who appears as a surprisingly Middle-Eastern-looking young bearded man), Susano’o, several others, Sarai, and myself were in Georgia to meet with this pantheon when we came under attack by the Order. Not conventional attack- they didn’t rush down on us in person as I would have expected based on my previous encounters. No, instead they employed a Working that convinced the pilots of three fighter jets that we were military forces. We didn’t see it coming until it was almost too late. Only Susano’o, Quetzalcoatl, Sarai and I survived the first attack, and none of us should have.

It was Quetzalcoatl who realized first what was going on. We had moved ourselves to a cave safely away from the attack and were trying to cope with losing our diplomatic contingent- we’ve been doing a lot of bridge-building between Old One communities- and suddenly I saw him straighten up, glare at Sarai, and then, moving so quickly I didn’t realize what was happening until he’d stopped moving, pinned her to the wall with a hand gripping her throat.

I don’t remember exactly what he said, just that it was an accusation of collusion with the Order, but I remember her reaction very clearly because it was not the one I expected. She knocked his arm away from her with no apparent effort, and laid him out with a punch to his jaw. Then she gave a condescending sneer and said, “You were always a problem, Lucifer. But this time the true end is coming, and you will die a final death.”

And then she disappeared.

My head was spinning, but the first thing was to be safe and Quetzalcoatl- Lucifer?- was on his feet immediately, so we moved ourselves back to Teotihuacan. I was still trying to figure out what had happened, and I desperately wanted to ask Quetzalcoatl why the hell he’d attacked Sarai and what she’d meant by Lucifer and WHAT THE HELL JUST HAPPENED, but the three of us turning up in Teotihuacan without our diplomatic team or Sarai raised the alarm and a lot of questions. Sometime during the explanations that followed, I lost track of him. Eventually, I went to sleep, because I was damn tired and didn’t want to think.

I found him the next morning just before dawn standing at the top of the Temple of the Sun. When I reached him, he held up a hand to forestall what I was about to say, and asked, “What do you know about the morning star?”

“You mean Venus?”

“No. The other Morning Star,” and I could hear the capital letters slotting into place. I must have looked confused, because he sighed and said, “There is a title given to both Lucifer and Jesus of Nazareth in the Christian Bible. Do you remember what it is?”

I did. That particular title had always bothered me for that exact reason. “The Bright and Morning Star.”

He nodded. “It isn’t a title, really. It’s a weapon. You’ll need it to fight the Order.”

My head spun. “So… you’re really Lucifer? That Lucifer?” I had forgotten Sarai now.

He nodded again. “The same one. I held the Morning Star once upon a time, just as John the Baptist did briefly before he gave it to Jesus. It’s been lost since Jesus fell from grace, though.” I was speechless now, and it showed. He clearly misunderstood my confusion, though.

“You look surprised. Did you really think the Christian fable was true? The Jehovah God gave His only begotten son to cleanse his people of sin? Not hardly. Jesus was an Awakened man, like you, who somehow found the Morning Star and used its power to heal people and influence the world until the Old Ones and Awakened of his time united to take it from him. He would never have died on the cross had he still had hold of it.”

Truth be told, I had been more curious about the fact that Satan was standing in front of me, but that explanation got my attention. “What is the Morning Star?”

He- Quetzalcoatl- Lucifer, I guess- gave a lopsided smile that would have stopped the heart of any girl in close proximity, and shrugged. “A weapon. A power source. A guide through hard times. It is a shining ball of energy that fills you with certainty and whispers dreams of glory in your ear.” He caught my skeptical expression- I’m not big on flowery prose being spoken out loud- and shrugged again. “You’re a computer-oriented person, right? Think of it this way: the Morning Star gives you root access to the world.”

Hotdamn. I don’t remember the rest of that conversation real clearly, because I’ve been thinking about the Morning Star ever since. What it comes down to, though, is that Lucifer hid as Quetzalcoatl when he lost control of the Morning Star. Not very well, if anyone had paid very close attention- you would expect that someone might notice a white, bearded deity identified with Venus the Morning Star who also appeared as a serpent in a lineup of South American deities, but the Old Ones are such an odd lot that even religious scholars dismissed the Feathered Serpent as just another strange god, despite the obvious similarities between Quetzalcoatl and the Biblical Lucifer/Serpent.

Since Lucifer lost it, the Morning Star has been passed as a sign of favor and power from Old One to Awakened to Old One. After Jesus’ time, it’s been mostly lost or hidden, although the rise of empires provides a pretty suggestive trail. It’s been lost since the 1500s or so, although Lucifer assumes it was involved in the founding of the United States.

Shit. From the sounds coming from outside we’re under attack. The Order must be trying again. I need to go help if I can, but expect me Stateside soon- I’m going to look for my weapon.

More tomorrow if I can.

Ω

Promises kept

I’m still alive.

Every morning I wake up and realize that simple fact, and every morning I feel lucky- because there are too many people who can’t say the same. More and more of them are people I like.

I’ve been moving around a bit, researching weapons that might help me against the Order, but I’ve been spending enough time in Teotihuacan that if the Order were able to bring me back, I’d be dead by now. Must suck for those assholes- suddenly without the power that let them hunt down all their other victims. In case you all are curious, it turns out that if enough Old Ones and Awakened- the word the Old Ones use for humans who can change the world- know for certain where you are, it makes you damn hard to move.

Instead of the visit from the Order I’ve been expecting for the last couple days, I received a much more pleasant one. Sarai showed up yesterday, and while my first reaction was to try to send her home, she pointed out right away how bad an idea that was… and then followed that up by turning into a mountain lion. The mountain lion, in fact.

Guess that explains why it reminded me of her.

Apparently she’s an Old One- she got wind of the prophecy the Order are following and got to me first. I’m not overly fond of the idea of an Old One placing herself in my life like that, but Sarai’s been good to me. It may very well be that she’s looking to get something out of this, but at least if that’s the case she has the decency to hide it. Unlike most of the other Old Ones.

Turns out I’ve been changing things already. The world the Awakened and the Old Ones live in is- was- pretty stable. You might even call it sedentary. Or petrified. Or frozen in time. You get the idea. Not a lot happening. The only real exception was the Order, who apparently have witch hunts every few years when they get bored- or, as they frame it, when some poor bastard does something that “upsets the Plan”.

I really am going to take them out. They are all going to die.

Anyway, just having me moving around and acting as a point of contact for different… call them covens… of Old Ones has changed things up a lot. Not everyone wound up with the right coven or pantheon at the end of the last big disturbance, and with me moving and more Old Ones talking to each other, there are all sorts of reunions and movements starting to happen. Alliances, too. I’m kind of worried that news fights are going to break out between some of them. Fights between immortal beings who know they can alter the very fabric of reality by willing it- there’s a worrying idea.

The point is, with things changing around, some of the Old Ones have gone poking around in their libraries and decided that I really am the Heralded One (the formal name- I still kind of prefer “Chosen Guy”). That in turn leads to a lot of subtle- and sometimes less-than-subtle- attempts to push me in a direction that benefits someone else. So far at least I’ve only had to put up with three attempts to directly influence my actions. Incidentally, I was right about Amaterasu Omikami; she is the biggest brat I’ve ever met. Maybe one of the Aztecs will be able to calm her down.

Oh, on that note- I’d originally come down here to try to find out if the Mayans were behind this whole prophecy deal, but through a convoluted turn of events that I’m still not entirely convinced wasn’t someone else’s machination, wound up here- the “place of those who have the road of the gods”. Cute, huh? Not a terrible place to be, either, since there was a fairly large coven hanging out here to begin with. A lot more Old Ones have been showing up and sticking around recently, too. Makes it easier not to spend my time worrying that the Order are going to show up and start killing any second- they’d have a hard time of it in this crowd.

But hey- speaking to the Order, now- if you want me, you’d better act soon. I’ve got a couple of possible weapons lined up, and the Old Ones seem to enjoy teaching me about the Working. I’m getting stronger every day. You don’t have much longer. I’m coming for you soon.

Ω

War

David is dead.

I was in Japan, trying to find an out-of-the-way place to learn to move myself back to the States, when I suddenly got the feeling that something was watching me. Before I had the chance to do anything about it, everything went black, and then I was on the ground in the middle of a circle of people.

It was the Order of the Twelve Stars. I was pretty clear on that pretty quickly because they were wearing white robes with red crosses on the breast instead of normal street clothes. Also because one of them had a sword and was coming at me with it. Very few people who aren’t part of the Order have tried to kill me.

I really didn’t want to be there, but more than that, I wished David were there. As the guy with the sword came closer, I closed my eyes and imagined David storming toward the circle of zealots with his sword. As I thought of it, I felt something give- in the world or in my mind, I don’t know, but I felt it give. And I realized that as much as I wanted David there, the Order didn’t want him there. At least one member of the Order was imagining him there too.

In a split second, I realized how Susano’o had moved me to Japan, and I realized what I had to do. Instead of wishing and imagining David there, I knew he was there. With eyes still closed, I made myself believe that he was standing just beyond the circle, sword in hand. I felt the world give, and this time it really was the world, no question.

And then I heard David shout. There were no words, no coherent thought behind his shout, but I opened my eyes in time to see him charge the robed man with the sword who was still coming toward me. As the robed man turned to meet his charge, the circle of the Order exploded. Instead of looking at me, they were looking at David, and each member of the Order was moving toward him with a purpose.

I made to move in his direction too, but he just had time before he crossed swords with the zealot to shout, “GO!”, and I did. I ran away from the place where they’d brought me into the Arb, back into town and away from the Order, without looking back.

Since then, I’ve been on the move. I’ve tried bringing David to me again, but no luck. The last time I saw him, he was being attacked by the ten remaining members of the Order; I think he must be dead now. I’ve also received an e-mail from the Order in which they claim to have killed him and tell me to turn myself over, which tends to lend credence to that theory.

I’m going into hiding now. Sarai, I’m sorry; I wish I didn’t have to disappear like this, but without David, I’m not safe in Oberlin. Please let my boss know I’ll be gone for a while. I won’t be able to post my whereabouts on BrightKite until I can figure out how to stop the Order from bringing me back to Oberlin by thinking me here; I have some ideas there, so hopefully it won’t be too long. I’m pretty sure that the only reason they were able to bring me back this time is because they knew where I was and knew exactly how to change the world to bring me back. If I can avoid letting them know where I am for now, I should have enough time to put some countermeasures in place.

There’s one final part to this post, and it’s not meant for family or friends or casual readers. It’s meant for the Order of the Twelve Stars.

I know you’re reading this. I know you killed David. I know you tried to kill me, too, because you think I’m going to destroy the world or something. I don’t care why you did it. All you need to know is this: you’re going down. I don’t know if I’m that special person you think I am, but if I am, you’re fucked, because I am turning my whole attention to beating you. I know that I can do impossible things now, just as you can; I just don’t know which things are really possible and which are truly impossible. But I am a very fast learner, and I promise you that I will be back once I know the rules, and I will take. you. out.

This is war.

Ω

Things I’ve Learned

(Here’s the blog post I promised earlier on Brightkite.)

In the past few days, I’ve learned a number of things. Some of the most important of them are these:

1. I suck at keeping blogs up to date. Okay, I knew that one already, but now I have more proof.
2. David has a sword. Also, he can use it really well.
3. The Order of Twelve Stars is now the Order of Ten Stars. See #2.
4. The more people who believe in something, the harder it is to do something that contravenes that belief. In other words, my ability to change something by thinking it so is greater if few people believe it’s impossible. Or if no one’s paying attention.
5. That doesn’t mean that seemingly impossible things necessarily are. For example…
6. If someone shows up on my doorstep claiming to be a mythical deity, from here on out I should probably believe them. Also…
7. Susano’o exists. So does Amaterasu, although she’s kind of a bitch.
8. The Japanese emperor really is descended from the kami. From that entitled brat Amaterasu, actually.
9. The torii at Meiji Shrine are really, really large. Also impressive. Did I mention large?

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go find somewhere out of the way so I can get myself back to Ohio. In Japan, finding somewhere out of the way might be a little bit tricky. Still, should be back by tomorrow morning American time.

Ω

Surprise

Having your (now-ex) boss blow pot smoke in your face at a party is weird; seeing his replacement wearing makeup at the local pub is only slightly less so.

Real post coming soon- probably tomorrow.

Ω

This is only a test

Just testing out the new Wordpress app for the Touch platform. You know, David is pissed about me having a blog- says that’s how the Order found me- but shit like this is just too much fun to give up. Next up: using VNC to post from my new old PowerMac G4.

Seriously though, I love technology. Except that I’ve just realized there’s no way to type my customary omega on the Touch. Bah. I’ll go for something more pretentious:

/finis/

P.S. It turns out the automatic Touch spellchecker tries to turn shit into shut or shot, bitch into birch, and fuck into duck. This amuses me greatly.

What the Hell? Redux

I went back to the Arb today, and his body was gone.  But not just that- there were no footprints, no blood, no disturbed ground even.  It was like the shooting and his chasing us never even happened.  Nothing there.  Nothing at all.

I should back up.  I decided to go back to the Arb because I couldn’t believe it had happened; it felt so much like a bad dream.  Sarai refused to go with me, so I went by myself.  I expected to find the body, or blood, or some evidence of what happened, but there was nothing like that there.

Instead, there was David.

He was standing there when I got there, nearly on the spot where the man had fallen, and looking away from me, down toward the woods.  He didn’t turn around at first.  He didn’t respond when I said hello.  But when I came within a few feet of him, he turned around in a blur and slapped me, hard, across the face.  I went down, tasting blood.

It took me a moment to register what had happened, and another to realize he was still speaking.  He asked me if I was an idiot, if I had a death wish.  I looked at him like he was crazy since, hey, I had no idea who the psycho with the gun was, and I’d done nothing to bring him down on me.  David kept ranting- what the hell was I doing, coming out here alone again?  Wasn’t being shot at once enough for me?

Wait, I thought.  How the hell does David know about that?

He stopped ranting at that moment and looked at me.  He looked angry still, but he also looked old.  He grunted and extended his hand to help me up, as if he hadn’t attacked me just a minute ago.  I took his hand because it was better to be on my feet if he did it again.  He didn’t.

He said something to the effect of, “He won’t be the last one.”  That seemed to indicate that David knew something about him, so I asked something very coherent along the lines of, “Who?  What?  Why?  Who…?”  After that, it got complicated.  This is the sum of what he said next, as far as I understand it:

Apparently there’s some kind of prophecy about a man who’s supposed to change the world, and who’s supposed to turn up about now.  David was unclear as to where the prophecy came from, but he said it’s old, and lots of people know it.  Well, people is maybe the wrong word.  According to David, there are spiritual creatures living among us.  Old gods and demons, mostly, with long memories and lots of knowledge but not much power.  We don’t believe in them, and no one cares about most of them, so they live quiet, mostly human lives- but their lives last forever.  They’re immortal.

These creatures aren’t the only ones who know this prophecy; apparently a number of humans do too.  The majority of them are part of one cult or another, some of them related to the Old Ones (as I’ve decided to call them, for lack of a better word).  Anyway, the prophecy supposedly says that this guy will turn up, probably a few years before 2012- apparently there are a few different versions and David triangulated with some of them and came up with 2008- and he’ll change things around in the occult world.  Details are sketchy on what exactly he’s supposed to do and when he’s supposed to do it, but the prophecy is very specific about one thing: he will turn up in the great and ancient lost land of Ohio.

You may be sensing a little sarcasm here.  For whatever reason, apparently a bunch of these Old Ones and some of the humans have decided that I’m him.  I’m the Special Guy.  I am, for crying out loud, the Chosen One.

Or maybe David’s insane.  That could be it too.  When I pointed that out to him, he got annoyed with me and asked me if I had a better reason for a man I didn’t know to be shooting at me.  I admitted that I didn’t have a good explanation, but really his didn’t seem very good either.

He gave his typical grunt and explained that the man who shot at me was a member of a Christian group called the Order of the Twelve Stars who equated the guy in the prophecy with the Antichrist.  They believe they can prevent a lot of bad shit from happening if they kill him- if they kill me.  Well, crap.  If that’s true, I’m screwed, and I said as much.  David chucked, and told me that while those people want me dead, there are plenty of people- and more Old Ones- who want to see me alive.  Everyone wants the prophesied change-making guy to be making the change for their benefit.  Or at least, everyone who doesn’t think he’s going to bring about the end of the world.

This sounds like bullshit, right?  I’m the chosen guy for dozens of burned-out gods and the Antichrist to dozens of religion-crazed Christians?  Sounds like a Neil Gaiman novel.  But mostly it sounds crazy.

I asked David, “If this is true, what’s your part in all this?  Where do you come in?” and he gave me this little enigmatic smile and said, “You’re an educated kid.  You know all the parts of this story.  Figure it out for yourself.  But if I were you, I’d get back in practice with the Secret.  I doubt the Order will launch any more attacks over the next few days, but you might want to be ready for when they do.”  And then he started walking away.

I couldn’t really handle much more, so I let him walk away.  It was almost as bad as that guy in England who tried to tell me that the world is secretly run by evil lizard robot monsters and that Stonehenge is part of their plot to rule the world.  Almost.  The really worrying difference between the two situations is that while that guy- Mike- sounded like a crackpot the whole time I talked to him, David sounded like he was making sense- like it didn’t matter if I believed him because I would find out sooner or later.  Like he was telling the truth.

I’ve been thinking a lot about this tonight- and this morning, I guess, seeing as it’s just about 4 AM now.  I still can’t get my head around this as anything but a story, but maybe that’s not a bad way to look at it.  I think that’s what David meant by me being educated.  I’ve spent a lot of time studying the hero’s path in various kinds of fiction, and applying that to what’s happening to me means that he should be the very old mentor figure.  He’s probably the last member of some kind of order or group, and he’s supposed to train me in their ways.

But this is such bullshit!  There are no gods, there are no demons, he’s not an ancient magician, and I’m not a hero.  I’ll be happy to accept that I’m awesome- hey, I like compliments as much as the next guy- but I’m hardly awesome enough to change the world using mystical powers.  Believe me, I’d know if I had them; I wished hard enough in grade school.

Ugh.  It’s 4 AM, and I’m going to bed.  But maybe I will watch the Secret again tomorrow.  And maybe it wouldn’t be terrible to start practicing with it again…

Ω

What the Hell?

This day has been so fucking bizarre I don’t even know where to start.  Oh, wait, yes I do:

HE SHOT AT US.  HE FUCKING SHOT AT US.

Sarai and I went out for a walk to the Arb just before twilight tonight, figuring that we’d get it to ourselves since the townies would be avoiding it because there might be drunk college students there and the drunk college students would be avoiding it because there might still be townies there.  As far as I know, we were right about that part.

We were a little way into the woods, nearly to the bridge across Plum Creek, when there was incredibly loud noise.  It was extremely close by and we would’ve jumped regardless, but it seemed even louder because we’d been walking without talking, enjoying the first firelies of the evening in the darkness under the trees.  Then, BANG!  And “BANG!” doesn’t really do it justice; it was somewhere between a bang and a roar, and it sounded like it had happened not fifty feet behind us.  We both jumped, I shouted something to the effect of “Jesus Christ!”, we turned around, and there was a man with a gun.

I won’t say the world slowed down, because that’s stupid and cliche and belongs in a horror novel.  I do remember exactly what the scene looked like, though- it’s like the adrenaline seared the image into my brain.  He was a big man, bigger than me and built, standing at the top of the little hill that leads down into the woods.  He was silhouetted by the last light of the evening, and he was holding a handgun.  It took me a moment to realize what it was- it was like a magic-eye puzzle, maybe because I’ve only ever seen someone hold a gun like that in movies before.  He was bracing his gun hand with his other one, and the gun was trained on me.

I had just enough time for my stomach to turn inside out and realize I was going to die before Sarai threw herself at me and the gun went off again.  I wound up on the ground with mud and leaves in my mouth and Sarai on top of me, and the knowledge that there was a man with a gun trying to kill me.  I wouldn’t normally have minded the second part, but the first and third parts put that kind of thought out of my mind in a hurry.

Somehow, I pulled myself and Sarai upright, the whole time expecting to hear a loud noise and then die.  It didn’t happen and I got a glimpse of the guy standing there messing with the gun as Sarai and I tore the HELL out of there.  We were across the bridge and off into the woods on the other side before he did whatever he was trying to do and started firing again.  I ran through half the arb and was headed up the hill when I realized that Sarai had disappeared and I hadn’t heard any gunshots in several seconds.  The child of those two realizations was dread, and when I looked over my shoulder, I saw the man chasing up the hill after me.  SHIT.  I ran faster.

Then I tripped.

By all rights, I should be dead.  I tripped over a rock and twisted my ankle hard enough that I was going nowhere in a hurry.  When I looked around again, the man had slowed to a walk and was less than fifty feet behind me.  The gun was pointed down, but since we were out from under the trees, I could see his expression.  It was composed of hatred and triumph.  Fuck.  I was dead.

He was within thirty feet of me and raising the gun when the other inexplicable event of the night happened.  I heard a loud rustling noise behind me, then what sounded like something running, and then a giant cat jumped over me.  I shit you not.  It looked like a fucking mountain lion, and it cleared the thirty feet between me and the man in that leap.  He never even got off a shot.  It hit him with its front paws and he went over like a felled tree.  I saw the gun go bouncing off down the hill, but by that time I was on my feet, twisted ankle or no.  Adrenaline is handy that way.

I got up, still looking at the cat- hell, it was a mountain lion, I swear it was- and it turned its head to look at me.  I will never forget its face.  It had blood on its bared teeth, and it was growling, but its eyes were the main attraction: they were green, wide open, and locked ON ME.  I couldn’t move.  The only time I’ve felt even close to that much like a deer in the headlights was when I first met Sarai and she gave me a similar look.

I joke, but I seriously could not move until it growled again and turned back to the man who’d been shooting at me.  With its eyes off me, I turned and hobbled like hell.  I got out of the arb without looking back, and was halfway back to campus, trying to figure out what the hell had just happened and where Sarai was, when my phone rang.  It was Sarai, freaking out and checking in to make sure I was okay.

I’ve spent most of the rest of tonight with Sarai, trying to figure out what the hell happened back there.  She headed in an entirely different direction back at the arb, and didn’t see any of what happened to me.  Neither of us has any idea why someone would be shooting at us, but she swears she heard him shout something like “Die, demon child!” between gunshots, which is fucked up and freaky as hell.

We decided not to call the police because… well, a guy with a gun who shouted and shot at us and then got pounced on by a cougar?  They’d call it bullshit and figure we were high, like most of the students who hang out in the arb.  Presumably someone else will find his body and call them, and then they can spend some time trying to figure out what the hell is going on.  For crying out loud, I don’t even know who he was…

I suppose it’s not worth mentioning after that, but the earlier part of the day was fairly uneventful- e-mail transition questions at work and a discussion of the Threefold Law and Wiccan thought with Sarai over dinner.  She was a little pushy about some of it, but, seriously?  I got shot at today.  Not complaining about a little extra religion in my life, however modern and made up.  I can do with all the good vibes I can get right now.

I have no idea how I’m going to sleep tonight.

Ω