Dragonproof - 10. Chapter 10

Considering what was going on with Hugo, how less-than-sure I was of Char and her ability to handle her task, I more or less felt compelled to go see Tyrathaxion. He was simply my best shot at finding a way to help Hugo, which may have the side effect of solving this issue with the stones. My problem was Connor and what to say.

Again, I've seen enough TV to know it always seems to backfire when you leave big things out, like your benefactor is a dragon. I also know that's drama and not real, except when things are real and they go wrong, there is drama.

I don't want drama, least of all the kind where Connor starts to figure out he's better off without me and my magical...whatever. So, I popped some ibuprofen, got dressed as I normally would, and sat down on the couch with Connor and took one of his hands in mine.

“Oh, no,” he said, covering his forehead. “Please don't say you're going to propose?”

“What? No! I'm not on one knee, even!” I protested.

He smiled a little and raised an eyebrow at me.

“Okay,” I said, letting out a breath. “I kind of love you right now.”

He swallowed, looked away for a moment and then back to me, color filling his cheeks. “Just right now?”

I nodded my head side to side. “It's just at high tide. Emotion, not lust.”

“Isn't lust an emotion?”

I smiled. “Moving on. Uh. Remember how I was saying I wanted to be careful not to overdo things with the information sharing?”

“Well. Yeah. It was today, Nico. I'm not dim.”

I pushed my lips together and to one side, sucking on my teeth. “Okay. So, tiny thing. I need to go see T- uh, Mr. Tyrath. He has some, uh, knowledge that could help me with Hugo's...situation.”

He frowned. “Really?” His eyes went wide. “You don't think he knew about the stones, do you?”

“Uh. Maybe? I mean, maybe not, but....”

He looked at me a little askance. “Okay, really clear. Do you think he knew or not?”

Recalling his comment about the magical energy likely being lost in the haze of his building, I nodded my head. “More than likely not.”

He frowned, but this time looking more like he was in thought. “I suppose it makes a certain amount of sense. I mean, if you accept that magic is a thing, then the likelihood of encountering some of it with all the old pieces that go through the store – right?” He looked to me.

“Yeah. More than like-”

Hugo screamed in what couldn't be anything but pain. “Nico! I'm coming apart!”

“Coming apart?” I muttered, my nerves spiked up. “What does that even...okay. Okay. Hugo, can you get it under control? What does it feel like?”

There was a pause. “It...feel like I'm unbalanced. I feel like I'm sliding somewhere...I don't know. Everything is wrong.”

I rubbed my hand over my mouth. “Do you think you can get control of it?”

Hugo screamed.

“Okay, that's a hard no,” I said to myself. “Shit. Okay, Hugo, if you can't get a grip, I only have one play I can think of.”

Hugo appeared and slammed into the couch, jostling it heavily to one side and then was gone.

“Yeah, okay.” I ran into the small room with my map, where I'd kept the stone for studying. I snatched it up and looked at it with something close to disgust. “You better be good for something.”

I raced back to the living room, to see Hugo appear again and put a dent in my kitchen counter. I mean, that's not easy.

“What're you going to do?” Connor asked.

I looked at him and showed him the stone. “The only energy I have to balance him out – if that's what it is – is Hugo's own energy. I'm going to crack this thing open, magically speaking, and hope the energy of the memories can balance the energies inside him.”

Hugo howled, and I knew I was out of time to try something to help him. As I placed the stone on the floor I tried to push all the internal berating of myself to one side – how I should have been studying, how I should have gone last night and not indulged in letting Connor try to heal me up. I could have gone! If I had, Hugo would be okay now. I closed my eyes and forced the air from my lungs.

Focus.

I drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly before opening my eyes and looking at the stone. Hugo's scream was nearly enough to break my focus, and then I lost it. “Damn it,” I muttered. I re-centered myself and opened my eyes to examine the stone on the magical plane. The strands of power still lay over it, not that I remembered exactly what I'd seen before. They were in pretty bad shape, degrading and fraying. I looked for a thread of power that was particularly weak, hoping to break one or two at a time and control the release of energy.

“Nico!” Hugo cried out.

Okay. Out of time. Holding my staff, I threaded power down at the stone, but I missed the thread I was looking at. I swear the threads shifted at the last moment – and they began unraveling. It was as if the strands had been under tension and they were simply letting go, growing less substantial by the moment.

“Hugo! Buddy, get close!” I called out. Looking to my left I spotted Connor. I reached for him and tried to throw up a shield, but I was too slow. There was a a hollow booming sound, one I wasn't entirely sure wasn't just in my head. I hit the floor, and Connor was bounced off the bed and onto the floor. I sat up, ears ringing and trying to get my feet under me – but when my eyes could focus, it was to a scene of total chaos.

It was like a series of extras from a movie set a few hundred years ago was between takes, but the extras were all confused and noticing the competing number of people – memories – around them. Amazingly, they began to argue, demanding to know who the others were and what they were doing there. Hugo flickered into view, and the edges of his form looked...fuzzy. Like he was the embodiment of static electricity and looking at him caused his edges to buckle and release.

Then the world stopped.

I looked around and realized it could only mean one thing – one person – and I was likely in trouble.

The door opened quietly, and Tyrathaxion entered, looking at the surroundings and failing to contain a sneer.

“You live here?”

I rubbed my palm up my nose and forehead, holding it there for just a moment to keep my brain in. “Glad you're here, actually. I was going to come see you to figure out what to do, but things got out of control.”

“Clearly,” he replied, tone sarcastic. He glanced around the room and sighed. “Just what have you done?”

“It's not really my fault!” I protested.

The dragon looked at me steadily. “So, nothing happening here is due to any decision you've made?”

I opened my mouth a few times. “Well. When you put it like that....”

He lowered his chin. “Responsibility is nothing to be shirked. That is your first lesson.”

Feeling bad, I nodded and kept quiet.

He looked around the room and then focused on the memories, slowly moving around them, studying them. “Interesting. This is the energy from one of the stones you mentioned?”

“Yes.”

He sniffed. “Well. This will draw attention. I'll have to disperse it.”

“What? No!”

He turned to look at me, one eyebrow in the air. “No?”

I let out a breath and set my jaw. “No. I made a decision, but I have to correct it. If I can.”

He tilted his head to one side. “Go on.”

I moved my lips almost as if the words were fighting behind my lips. “I was...kind of beat up after an encounter with one of the summoned creatures the night before last. Connor was...helping me recover.”

His eyes narrowed slightly. “We can come back to that. Continue.”

Again, I had to wonder why a dragon was interested at all in a human. “With me feeling unwell, I sent Hugo – the spirit that I...who I work with.” I closed my eyes briefly. “My friend.” I opened my eyes and fixed them on Tyrathaxion. “He was just supposed to observe, but a manifestation happened quickly enough that he had to make a judgment call. He didn't think I would get there in time, so he intervened and...he absorbed the energy. It wasn't his memory, and...he's coming apart.”

“Well of course he is,” Tyrathaxion replied as if it were the most obvious thing. “After you apprenticed to me, I looked into the situation you'd brought up.” He held a hand up. “As a master I have an obligation to teach; you may blunder into your own death, no doubt sooner than later, and yet I should be aware and make an attempt to teach you.”

“Uh. Thank you?”

He sighed. “Indeed.” He looked at the memories and then back to me. “Energy, as you must know, works on different wavelengths. Humans have long claimed to know where 'ley lines' are located and that they have special features to them, as a for instance.”

“Wait. Ley lines are fake?”

“Of course they aren't, don't be dim!” he replied in irritation. “The fault lies in the humans that think they are in any way sensitive to such energies.” He tilted his head toward me. “Magi excepted.”

I swallowed, nodded and waited.

“So, this Von...Van...” He rolled his hand at me.

“Von Shits in Pants. Yeah, him.”

He pursed his lips. “You lack any skill at all in humor.”

I decided to let him have that one.

“At any rate, while this person was correct that energy from life in the form of a memory could be stored and harnessed, it couldn't be absorbed by anyone but the creator of those memories, under normal circumstances. For instance,” he said, waving toward the frozen memories. “These can be absorbed by the person to whom they belong, but for them to be of use to another there would have to be some sort of interface to transfer the energy in a form usable by others. Purify it in a sense. When he tried to harness the energy for himself, he failed to take proper steps and...blew himself up, I think you said?”

I nodded.

“So, your...friend...has placed himself in that position.” He glanced at the memories again. “Were you hoping to thin out the errant energy in him?”

“More or less,” I said. “Hugo only absorbed a fraction of the energy – a single manifestation, not the entire contents of the stone. He said he feels like he's being torn apart. It didn't seem like he could hold it together, so I thought...this energy – his energy – could counter what he has going on.”

“Close enough. It should dilute it,” he said after a moment. He turned to me. “However, your actions here will draw unwanted attention. I see you failed your first task in ensuring you have proper warding on your residence.”

I shook my head. “These are the best I know how to cast.”

He glanced around and let out a sigh. “Then the fault is mine.” He rubbed his forehead. “I'll need to go find some blood. Get this random energy cleaned up and – wait, what are you going to do with this spirit once you've topped up its energy level?”

I had no idea what he meant. “What do you mean?”

He took a deep breath, closing his eyes as he did so. I got the impression he may have been counting down. Opening his eyes he said, “Should I ever meet your parents, I will consume them whole.”

Meet them? I cleared my throat. “No protest here.”

Folding his hands in front of him, he said, “When a spirit separates from a body, it loses the ability to hold all but the barest trace of energy. Most times they don't exist at all, perhaps moving to an afterlife or what have you. But one thing they can't do is retain energy.”

I frowned. “Then how is Hugo holding what he has?”

He pressed his lips together. “Think of it like a bladder with a slow leak.”

I stared. “Like...someone wetting themselves?”

He snorted and tilted his head to one side. “Not that kind of bladder.”

I looked around the room quickly – anywhere but him for a hot minute – and then finally back to him. Nope, he was still irritated.

“I don't know another comparison for a bladder besides what I just said.”

He held his hands out about a foot apart. “It's hollow with flexible sides and can hold air?”

“Oh! Like a balloon?”

He let out a sharp breath. “Yes, okay, perhaps a better example. So, like a balloon with a hole, ghosts only retain the barest bit of energy – and if they should suddenly obtain energy, they usually just let it out right away – such as a poltergeist.”

“Right, that part I know,” I said, feeling a bit better about not being a complete idiot.

“The difference here is that this energy – this stored memory – is instead...wearing your spirit like a skin; trying to force its way out though him.” He waved his hand at the memories. “These will thicken his outer shell to hold the energy, but that only delays and exacerbates what he's dealing with. That energy needs to go somewhere.”

I opened my mouth and shook my head. “I...are you saying...I'm not entirely sure what you're saying, and I don't want to assume.” I was afraid he was saying I couldn't help Hugo and whatever was going to happen to him was going to be my fault. Was already. In a permanently dead kind of way. I didn't want to lose Hugo.

Tyrathaxion tilted his head a bit from side to side and looked around the room again, snorting in mild disgust. “If it were your own doing entirely, I'd let things stand as they are. It would be a poignant lesson in responsibility. However, your – Hugo is it? He's impressed me, stepping in to absorb the energy. It was foolish, and foolishness is usually punished quickly, but when one is foolish for a noble reason...well, it's still foolish, but it need not be fatal.”

“But he's dead,” I said without stopping to think.

He shook his head. “It's like information merely reflects away from you.” He sighed. “He needs a physical vessel.”

“You mean...like a body?”

He shrugged. “If one were handy, it could work in a pinch. His own body would be ideal.”

“Uh. He's been dead a few hundred years.”

He crossed his arms. “It'll come to you in a moment.” He sighed. “I hope.”

I looked all around the room as I thought. Well, Hugo's body was rotted and gone by a few hundred years. All that would be - “His bones! They're interred in the foundation of this building!”

“A single spark in the never-ending darkness,” he said blandly. He narrowed his eyes and glanced around the room. “Ah,” he said simply and strode to Hugo. He licked the end of his finger and touched Hugo's arm, then closed his eyes and stood still. “I have it,” he said, without revealing what it was. He held his other hand out and made a series of motions that would likely snap a human's wrist while he chanted something in a language I didn't recognize. He brought his hands together with a clap and then made as if he were throwing something at the floor – both hands – and with a puff of dust, there was a pile of bones.

I stared. “Is that...Hugo?”

“It matches his harmonic resonance,” he said, as if I should understand that. He glanced at me. “When he absorbs the energy of his memories, he should be near these bones. Within a few feet, I think. Then they will fuse.”

I glanced around in confusion., “Fuse? What does that mean?”

His eyes narrowed. “Is that Connor? Near the bed?”

I glanced over, even though I knew where he'd landed. Looking at Tyrathaxion I replied, “Yeah. The stone kind of exploded when I tried to carefully let a memory out. I figured Hugo could absorb them easier if it weren't all at once.”

He stared at me for a moment, and I felt a shiver run up my spine and turn my guts to water. It was the stare – the primal stare of a predator at its prey. I had to work hard to not take a step back or unclench and soil myself.

Speaking in a measured tone he said, “I will get the required blood. You will clean up this mess. Once your home is warded we shall discuss how to contain this other stone you mentioned.”

“There are at least two more.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Then we shall dispose of them. In the meantime...get to work.”

Time went back to normal speed with a sonic boom in the middle of my head. Tyrathaxion was gone, but Hugo was flickering out of control. I strengthened my grip on my staff and channeled air to move the bones closer to Hugo – he was stumbling as much as a flickering, fuzzy ghost could – and I didn't think there was any way he'd hear or understand what he'd need to do. Fuck, I wasn't sure what we were doing.

Connor was suddenly standing beside me, pointing at the bones and asking what the heck those were – and then there was a burst of light as one of the memories made contact with Hugo.

“Shit, that's bright!” Connor said beside me, but sounding like he was far away. I focused on the bones, shifting them into the same space where Hugo was...stumbling, I guess, into his memories. I had to turn away as a series of bright flashes filled the room – probably looked like lighting was striking inside the house, if you were looking through the windows from the curb – that kind of bright.

I slowly turned, half expecting there to be one more flash waiting to blind me by burning my retinas, but instead it was....I don't know what the fuck I was looking at.

“Hugo?” I asked, carefully.

He turned his head slowly, as if not being used to the idea. It's funny. I'd never really noticed Hugo's appearance – like, I hadn't studied it. He'd always appeared to me in period clothes, probably something that he wore around the time he'd died. He'd never appeared in a way you'd mistake for a live person, though. He had always appeared a bit insubstantial. Not black and white, just...faded. You could see through him, but just barely.

Not anymore. The bones were gone and there was a very naked, very real Hugo in my living room. He was covered in ectoplasm, but even now it was sloughing off him and dripping onto the floor. He groaned, a very low, quiet sound, and collapsed.

That didn't change the fact that he'd been dead and was now very alive.