Jason Blood
Christopher Swanson
Christopher Swanson’s son, Charles—Charlie now, and he was getting better at remembering—hadn’t always been into magic.
Christopher was of the opinion it was a normal teenage thing, having an occult phase. He’d grown up in the 70s, which might have been the source of that opinion. But all signs pointed to phase, so he wasn’t worried about it. It was honestly a little cute. It’d started at the right moment for a “normal teenage thing,” during the summer between Charlie’s last two years of middle school. There was a new kid at school, someone who’d had the unfortunate experience of transferring to a new school in March. She’d had all the makings of an outcast, dressing weird and showing up halfway through the second year, no friends and no idea who anyone was.
Christopher was extremely proud that his son had immediately made friends with the little weirdo. He knew it was because she’d been set to be an outcast. Charlie was just that kind of boy. Christopher wished he could take credit for it, but really, all of Charlie’s best traits came straight from his mother, whose memory was, and always would be, a blessing. He’d done his best, but she’d imbued more love and compassion into that boy in seven years than he’d managed in the next ten. So of course, Mariasha’s son would make friends with the transfer student, and in doing so, make sure she’d never be picked on—at least not in front of Charlie, who was popular and well-loved and in both track and color guard.
So Christopher didn’t care that the kid was a weird, witchy little thing. Sure, she painted her nails black and listened to guttural screaming that was only music if you stretched the definition. So what? It reminded Christopher of his own high school years, and of the long-haired hippies he hadn’t been brave enough to be friends with. His son was better than him. That was a good thing.
He wasn’t even worried that it was rubbing off on Charlie. That was normal, and Charlie’s grades weren’t dipping—well, any further than they were already dipped—and he wasn’t skipping school or sneaking out at midnight to sacrifice cats. If he started burning his allowance on tarot cards and candles instead of designer bags and parties for half the school, who cared? He wasn’t unhappy. He wasn’t going through an “I hate you dad!” phase. He was still wearing bright colors and a big smile. That was absolutely all Christopher cared about when it came to Charlie.
The phase continued into high school, and it continued past the point when Charlie’s witchy little friend transferred away again, but it didn’t really hit full force until Charlie’s junior year of high school. Charlie had spent that summer on Lake Erie, visiting his mother’s family. He came back different, but that was normal too. Kids grew so fast at that age, their interests and personality rocketing this way and that as they tried to figure out who they are. Christopher wanted to give his son plenty of room to do that, and he knew Mari’s family could never be bad influences. If anything, he wished Charlie would spend more time with them—they had roots that Christopher didn’t know how to grow, with his awkward Friday nights and bought-and-paid-for Hebrew school—but Charlie was a California boy through and through and hated the cold.
Christopher let Charlie spend his money on whatever he wanted. Mari might not have been Swanson rich, but they’d gone to the same schools for a reason, and she’d left everything to Charlie. It sat in a trust, over which Christopher had control, but all he did was make sure it grew. It was Charlie’s money. If he wanted to spend it on silly little, what were they called, tchotchkes, and peculiar pieces of art, Christopher didn’t care at all. Whatever made him happy. And he was making friends, sellers and other interested parties who attended auctions. It was good for him to have hobbies outside of school; it was great for him to make friends with people of a variety of ages. A growing young man needed role models, and Christopher didn’t trust himself with that. He made sure anyone who spent more than a little time with Charlie was vetted. These were rich-blood auctions, anyway. There weren’t any real weirdos hanging out there.
Jason Blood: Real Weirdo
These auctions were almost always a waste of time. They were a place for the disgustingly wealthy to burn their money on fish oil and magic tricks, and Jason found them distasteful and more than a little boring. But he went to them anyway, because every now and again, one of the supposedly magical artifacts wouldn ’t be a lie, exaggeration, or outright scam. And that was significantly more dangerous than the normal course of separating fools from their money. No one wanted a rich, powerful, magical idiot.
It was at one of those faires for fools that he met Charles Swanson, who stood out due to being a good thirty years younger than anyone in the audience. He was preppy and well-dressed, flashy in his faux-vintage Ralph Lauren, his yellow-blonde hair well-coiffed and his lean equal parts lazy and affected arrogance.
He also had a very good eye for magic. Young master Swanson had been at enough auctions to bid on the exact items Jason had come to examine, with enough frequency that it became suspicious. He’d asked around and found out only the benign: Charles was the spoiled only son of a billionaire CEO, based on the west coast but willing to fly first class to attend auctions himself rather than send a man, which the vast majority of the rest of his wealth bracket did for such events. Jason even started skulking around Oblivion, hoping to catch word of the suspicious blonde brat, but no one had ever seen him there, or anywhere else important.
No, Jason learned exactly nothing, until his curious questions caught the ear of some low-level scalper, who, for an irritating price, informed him that Charles was a customer with a taste for the magical. Nothing that Jason didn’t already know, except that the boy was fishing closer to the source than just auctions with a supernatural rumor around them. It was less than not enough. With regret, he’d have to investigate the boy himself—asking anyone he knew to do it was not only annoying to consider, it would be an act of unmitigated cruelty if the lad turned out to be some twat with a good ear for gossip.
It was easy to strike up a conversation. The boy, who shyly reintroduced himself as Charlie after their third meeting, had noticed Jason’s tendency to show interest in the same item as him, and was excited to have someone even slightly friendly to talk to about his passionate interest in the arcane. And interest which, as Jason investigated, appeared for all the world to be mundane in nature. Charlie either had no talent for or interest in duplicity, or was remarkably good at playing the idiot, and as the two continued their acquaintance, Jason increasingly suspect that Charlie had never been remarkably good at anything in his entire life. He had a lot of hobbies. He was average in all of them. He wasn’t particularly smart, or particularly fast, or particularly strong. All he was, was rich. Fortunate for him that that was all it really took.
“I know it’s not real,” Charlie informed him one night, after winning the bid on an extremely fake Egyptian relic. “I just buy anything with a solid enough rumor attached to it. I figure, one of them has to hit eventually, right?” The boy laughed. “I can’t aim, so I’ll take the shotgun approach.”
The problem was, he was right. With enough shots and a wide enough spread, he just might hit eventually.
Kari
“Charlie. I need to talk to you about that rock you won.”
Kari, who kept wanting to tell people his name, turned to his maybe-friend, Jason Blood, with a smile. It was an absolute high beam of a smile, he knew. He couldn’t help it. The bidding for the obsidian necklace had been brutal, and coming out on top had given him a bidder’s high like he hadn’t experienced in a while. He was waiting for his item now, milling about with the other winners, trying and failing not to look overly smug about the dirty looks he was getting.
Jason was an art collector with an interest in the occult. It was a small circle; Kari ran into a lot of the same faces. Jason was nice. Didn’t condescend to him too much , seemed interested in the sources of the rumors Kari was chasing. Kari was pretty sure it was just so he could chase those same rumors, but he was willing to overlook it. Jason was older, and cool, and liked the same things as Kari but was smarter about them.
Kari was okay with being used if it meant he could have a cool friend; he was familiar with the concept of friendship , after all.
“Are you going to be the fifth person to try and talk me into passing it on?” Charlie teased, smiling. “I won, fair and square. Everyone should just try being richer next time.”
Normally, this would result in an annoyed expression that Jason would suppress in order to keep being nice. This time, he still looked very serious. The unusual reaction caught Kari slightly off-guard.
“Have you got it yet?”
Kari shook his head. “No, we’re waiting for the crowd to thin out since it’s such a high value item. Everyone’s real worried about me getting mugged… like I don’t bring security to these things,” Kari added with a roll of his eyes. His dad was permissive, but flying across the country with no security was just dumb.
“Good. Do you have a minute to talk?”
“I mean, what are we doing now?”
“Alone.”
A thrill of interest shot through Kari. Not like that —well, a little like that, Jason was a silver fox and Kari had a type, but no. Jason looked serious, and that made Kari wonder if maybe he hadn ’t actually finally struck on a little more of something than he normally did.
Kari believed in magic, was the thing. Oh, probably everyone at these events believed in magic, although Jason made himself out to be quite the skeptic. He’d gotten a whiff of it as a kid, and become convinced for a short time that magic could be his escape from the mundane, a way to be special that didn’t involve his daddy’s money. He’d given up on that, tried for other ways to be special. But the fact of the matter was that Kari was agonizingly, tortuously normal, and there was absolutely nothing special or interesting about him besides who’s dick half of his genetics had haphazardly splorted out of. And so, he’d circled back around to magic.
Kari followed Jason to an empty hall nearby; he had plenty of time until it was his turn to pick up his item, and he was desperately curious about what Jason would say.
“That stone is dangerous,” Jason said, expression deadly serious. Kari couldn’t help the electric excitement that sent his heart racing even faster.
“Dangerous like magical dangerous?” he pressed. He didn’t want to believe it, but Jason had never reacted like this to anything Kari had won before. It was likely that the necklace had some sort of hidden value, and this was a ploy by Jason to get it out of Kari’s hands. He could know that and want so badly for this to be real at the same time.
“Dangerous,” Jason repeated. Kari pulled his lower lip between his teeth and worried at it, wanting to believe and knowing better.
“Look, Dr. Blood, I like you. I don’t want this to become, like, a thing. But I also don’t want you to think I’m stupid enough to hear ‘that thing you’ve bought at the fake magical auction is real magical dangerous’ and just hand over something I paid a small fortune for.”
“I know you’re not stupid,” Jason affirmed. “I’ve never treated you like an idiot child before, have I?” He hadn’t, which was exactly why Kari liked him. But treating you like an adult was also a thing adults did right before taking advantage of the fact you were a kid. “That’s why I’m telling you this and not just stealing it out from under you.”
Kari gasped. “You wouldn’t!”
“I’d have to. And I think you can understand the sort of trust I’m showing you by telling you that. So that you can trust me back.”
This was getting kind of freaky.
Kari rocked back on his heels, unsure. “Do you have any, like, proof? That it’s dangerous? I mean, the stories are spooky, sure, but it’s a chunk of obsidian on a cord, Dr. Blood.” He couldn’t imagine what secret value it’d have to make someone who’d always seemed so even-keeled suddenly start an elaborate child-scam.
Jason was quiet for a moment. His eyes on Kari’s were intense, enough that Kari had to look away and chew on his lip again. He felt a little in over his head, but he was glad Griz was outside smoking—he refused to smoke around Kari, even in places where it was allowed—and not inside witnessing this. He wasn’t significantly more protective of Kari than Kari’s dad was, but any sitter—sorry, bodyguard —would draw the line at intense older men insisting on private conversations with the teenage boy.
“I think it’s for the best,” Jason said suddenly, as if coming to some conclusion. “Collect the necklace. Do not put it on. Then, bring it to me, and I can—
Kari held up a hand. “Blood, Griz is for sure going to be glued to me from the second I get that thing. I just paid over a million dollars for it. A lot of people are expressing a lot of interest, and I am but a waifish lad. ” Jason got halfway to rolling his eyes. This was a much more familiar reaction, and put Kari somewhat more at ease. “My point is, if you want to show me magical proof, and you don’t want my sitter to see—and for the record, I don ’t want my sitter to see—you’re gonna have to do it before I get the necklace, or after I’ve gone home with it.”
“That’s too dangerous,” Jason began immediately, but Kari shook his head.
“Tell me what to do with it or not do with it that’ll keep it from being dangerous. You’re kind of freaking me out, so I’ll do whatever weird shit it is. Then we can meet up, without Griz, before I leave town, and you can show me whatever evidence you have. Unless you can show it to me now, before I get the necklace?”
Jason was hesitating. He looked a bit nervous about something, which put Kari on edge again. Kari didn’t want to over-assume, but he thought he recognized on Jason the very familiar look of a man contemplating the lesser of two evils. Then he shook his head.
“I have an estate in Old Gotham,” Jason began, and Kari perked right up.
“I get to see your house?!” Kari had been hoping for an opportunity to peek through some of Jason’s collection.
“If you listen to me very carefully and do exactly as I say with that stone,” Jason said, voice deadly serious. It wasn’t a tone Kari was used to hearing. He sounded like Griz when shit got real.
Kari nodded, trying to mimic the serious attitude. It didn’t come naturally to him, so he didn’t think he was selling it. Too blonde, too bimbo. Too… Swanson.
“I will give you a box. Once you get the stone, put it directly in. Do not put the necklace on. Lock the box, keep the key on your person. Don’t let anyone else even see it. Not your bodyguard, not anyone. Can you come to my estate tomorrow?”
Kari nodded, eagerness ruining any seriousness he’d managed to acquire.
“Bring it with you. I’ll give you your proof, but Charlie?”
“Y-yeah?” Kari said, barely keeping his voice from cracking.
“There’s no going back from what you’ll learn. Are you okay with that? And think it over. Don’t give the impulsive teenage answer.”
“If it’s real, I’m going to run into it sooner or later,” Kari reminded him.
Jason ran a hand through his hair, fingers catching on the white streak at his brow. “I know. Believe me, I fucking know.”
Kari, The Next Day
Old Gotham was gothic as hell, and Jason Blood’s mansion was no exception.
Well, mansion was something of an overstatement for Gotham, but it had to count as a mansion when it was built. It wasn’t a sprawling estate like the ones in Gotham Heights, but a stately three-story Victorian home. Fenced in, of course. Everyone needed security fences in Gotham, Kari imagined. But not so far from the fence, with a yard of a reasonable size. It had something of a tower that added a fourth story to one section of the house. It was painted not black, which was something of a disappointment, but a sort of beige-green hybrid.
It was novel to Kari, who’d grown up in the shining chrome and neon of Metropolis, city of the future. It reminded Kari that his wealth was a measly three generations old, if you counted Kari, and made him wonder if the house had been in Blood’s family for a while. It looked like a great place to learn about magic.
He’d postponed his return flight. Dad didn’t like him missing school, but he’d overlook a day or two, especially if he thought it was for something ‘important to Kari’s growth as a young man.’ It wasn’t really difficult to convince Kari’s dad of anything, so he wasn’t worried about how he’d spin this later. Griz hadn’t even batted an eye when Kari told him he’d been invited to Jason Blood’s estate and was super definitely going . He was even more used to following Kari ’s whims than Dad was. His job was to keep Kari safe , not contained . He was good at both, which was why he’d had his job for so long. Not that Kari would even deign to imagine having someone else in the position.
The necklace was in the locked box that Jason had given him. Excited to prove himself, he hadn’t opened it even once since he’d placed the necklace inside the night before. The key, he’d hidden inside a pocket he’d sewn to the inside of all of his underpants—it was the best place to hide things, because adult security wouldn’t be caught dead groping some high schooler to see if they were hiding anything. Well, not this high schooler, anyway. Forget losing their jobs, if Kari shed a single tear about a misplaced finger in front of his dad, they ’d be set for jail or worse. Kari—tiny, young-looking for his age, blonde, blue-eyed, gorgeous-lashed, and still underage—was the exact kind of young man that any grown man didn’t want to be caught looking too long at, and Kari damn well knew it. He was on social media; he knew what they said about him online, both loudly and in quiet corners. He wasn’t above using it to his advantage, not even a little.
That was part of why this thing with Jason was so thrilling. Adults didn’t do things like this with him; he was too risky. It didn’t matter that Kari was on the cusp of eighteen, or that there were countdowns to his explosion into Eligible Bachelorhood; he was still a minor. Inviting a minor to your house, particularly if you were an unmarried adult man, could be interpreted badly. It wouldn ’t be, because Griz was going to be there, and because Kari’s dad liked Dr. Blood. And, most of all, because Kari wouldn’t allow it to be interpreted badly. He knew he could be manipulative, especially of the adults in his life, but he wasn’t going to let anyone say that shit about Jason. Not when he’d trusted Kari enough to do this in the first place.
Kari was trying not to vibrate in excitement as their car was buzzed through the front gate. The driveway was short, but there was only one car parked there. Had to be Jason’s. It was old-timey looking and black; Kari could appreciate the aesthetic but little else.
Griz whistled, catching Kari’s attention. “Nineteen-seventy-one Silver Shadow. You didn’t tell me your buddy was into cars.”
“He never mentioned it,” Kari said, eyes dragging over the car as if he could learn something from staring at it. “Is it a nice car?”
“Classic American luxury,” Griz said approvingly. Kari’s family drove entirely electric vehicles. Griz never critiqued them, but his own car was a heavily modified and much-loved 1967 Ford Mustang, a fact Kari only knew because Griz didn’t talk much, so when he did talk, Kari tried to listen. Cars were one of the things he talked about. “Tell your Dr. Blood he’s got good taste. Really fits the Gotham vibe.”
That, it definitely did.
“I’ll be sure to pass on the message. You don’t mind staying out here?” Kari wasn’t asking because he thought Griz would be antsy or worried, but because the house looked cool from the outside, and Griz might want to see the rest.
“Ask your buddy if I can look under the hood.”
“Will do. Three pages in a row if he says yes,” Kari promised. “You’re the best, Griz.”
Kari and Griz had a system. Kari liked being able to go places by himself. And so Griz carried what Kari called a pager, but which was actually some kind of super high tech satellite… still a pager, Kari was pretty sure? It wasn’t called that, but Kari was of the opinion that if something’s purpose was more or less just to beep, that shit was a pager. Kari had a little button, looked like a fidget toy, kind of, and when he pressed it, Griz’s pager would beep. He did this regularly, every minute or two, to let Griz know he was okay. If he ever stopped beeping, or if he sent the emergency blast, well. Too bad for whoever had caused that particular outcome.
Jason wouldn’t, Kari was pretty sure. Mostly sure. Everything would be fine.
The box was in Kari’s bag; he hadn’t wanted Griz to know he was bringing a high-value item into a mostly-stranger’s house. Not that it really mattered; Kari was way more valuable to everyone than some freaky necklace, but Griz didn’t love when Kari did dumb stuff that put himself at risk, like walking around with a necklace he’d just valued at over a million dollars, that a bunch of people were interested in, including the guy whose house he was walking into alone.
It’d be fine.
Jason opened the front door before Kari could knock; of course he knew they were here, what with the gate and all. He was dressed down, which was to say, he wasn’t wearing the jacket part of his usual suit, and the first few buttons of his shirt were undone. It might have actually been the same thing he’d been wearing yesterday. Kari felt super normal about it.
“Charles,” Jason said, and Kari quickly squished down and boxed up all of his complex emotions. This was serious business. Either he was about to see magic, or he was about to get scammed. He needed to be paying attention to things a lot more important than Jason Blood’s five-o-clock shadow and the implications of chest hair. He might have been seventeen, but he was capable of self-control. Despite what everyone thought.
Jason’s house was just as old-blood-austere on the inside as on the outside, if not more so. There was an antique coat hanger, which Kari used to hang up his cardigan, mostly for the novelty of it. The white wool with its red Gucci stripe clashed humorously with dark-colored trench coats much more suited to Gotham and Victorian mansions. Kari felt compelled to take his shoes off, but Jason wasn’t, so he didn’t. He was incapable of feeling underdressed in a $10,000 outfit, but he did feel out of place. Too bad he hadn’t traveled to Gotham with any ominous cloaks.
“You have the stone?” It was a question, but didn’t sound quite like one. Kari nodded.
“Still in the box. I only handled the necklace to put it in there, and that was with gloves.”
Jason raised an eyebrow. “I didn’t tell you to do that.”
“Standard procedure. Actually…” Kari reached into his bag and pulled out a pair of black leather gloves. There was stitching on the inside, invisible from the outside. “Can you tell me if these are real? I got them from my aunt, who said she got them from a Rabbi in Sommerset.”
Jason took one of the gloves, flipped it over, and then handed it back to Kari.
“Put those on,” he said, which served as an answer for Kari, who grinned and tried not to vibrate with excitement. Plus one, no, plus twenty bajillion points for his aunt, who had apparently found the coolest fucking Rabbi in America. Kari slipped the gloves on, not caring that they probably looked stupid next to his white shirt—Dior or no, a t-shirt was a t-shirt.
“Oh, before I get totally swept up in the magic thing, do you mind if my sitter looks at your car? Like, the engine or whatever. He won’t mess it up, he just likes cars.”
Jason blinked, clearly not anticipating this sudden conversational left turn. “Your sitter ?”
“Bodyguard,” Kari corrected. “Security detail. Y’know. Babysitter with a gun. He’s cool, I promise.”
“Ah. ‘Griz.’” Kari could hear the quotation marks around the nickname, and nodded. The two had met, albeit briefly. “Fine. I’d rather have him occupied.”
“Sick, he’s gonna be so pumped,” Kari said enthusiastically. He pulled out his phone to pretend to text him, and hit the pager button three times in quick succession while his hand was in his pocket. He was too lazy to actually bother texting. “Are you gonna confiscate my phone?”
“Should I?”
“Well, I’m not planning on secretly recording anything, but I wouldn’t blame you.”
“You’re placing a concerning amount of trust in me,” Jason said with a frown.
“I mean, yeah, but also no?” Kari said, tilting his hand side to side in the universal gesture for ‘mid.’ “I think we’re placing a similar level of trust in each other. It takes some amount of faith to be cool having America’s richest jailbait alone with you in your house.”
Jason looked equal parts disgusted and disturbed. “America’s richest what. ”
“Oh, are you not on the internet? Well, I am, and everyone over the age of nine knows how to disable safe search. My point is just that I’m not exactly defenseless. And apparently I have magic gloves!” He held up his hands and curled his fingers, then realized he was basically doing kitty paws and stopped.
“I think you should not be on the internet.”
“Okay, dad. So, can you tell me what’s up with this necklace now?”
“Follow me,” Jason said by way of response, and led Kari up some stairs, and then up some more stairs, followed by more friggin’ stairs. They must have been up at the top of the little tower Kari had seen from the outside of the house. Wizard tower wizard tower wizard tower wizard tower yes.
“Oh my god there are sigils on the ground,” Kari said, voice half an octave higher in excitement. If this was a scam, at least it came with a show. “This is great.”
“If you wouldn’t mind handing me the box,” Jason said.
“At least tell me what it’s supposed to be, first!” Kari protested. “Because from the listing, it sounded like a good luck charm at best, but this has been, like, a lot.”
“A good luck charm? That’s what it sounded like to you?”
Kari shrugged. “Its previous three owners all got basically everything they wanted.”
“They died miserable and alone.”
“I’m a billionaire. I’ll be doing that anyway. So, what, are you saying it’s cursed or something?”
“Much worse than that. That stone is no simple obsidian; it’s a shard of Avarice. Now please, hand it over.”
A shard of avarice sounded pretty fucking cool , but Kari nonetheless pulled the box out of his bag. He hesitated again before handing it over. This was maybe the only thing he’d ever bought that might actually turn out to be real magic. Did he really want to give it to Jason for the promise of some magical demonstration that could totally turn out to be roadside hocus pocus and special effects?
“Charles,” Jason said. “I need you to hand it to me.”
Kari frowned. “Why do you keep calling me that? I told you, it’s Charlie.”
“My apologies; there’s an importance to true names in certain circumstances.”
Kari hesitated again. “So, birth names?”
“Most of the time.”
Kari had a bit of a suspicion. “But not all of the time?”
“No, not all of the time. Generally, people know which name rings true to them at any given moment, however.”
Yep. Yeah. Well, he was already apparently trusting Jason with a lot of things, so this shouldn’t be the thing that did him in. “In that case,” he said, tone almost apologetic. “I think it’s probably Kari.”
“Ah,” was all Jason said. “Kari. Can you hand me the box?”
“Yeah,” he said, distracted trying to not process any of the emotions hearing that name out loud from someone else was giving him. He held out the box, and Jason took it. “Oh, wait, shit, the key.”
“Do you not have it?”
“I do, it’s just… uh, you might want to turn around for this.”
Jason eyebrows shot up.
“Look, I don’t know what magic pocket you keep important keys in, but you do not want to watch me dig it out from where I keep mine.”
“It’s… external… right?” Jason asked, sounding pained, and Kari let out a bark of laughter.
“Yeah, no prostate exam for you, doc,” he said with a snort. “It’s just down my pants. Bit harder for a Gotham pickpocket to get at. Or anyone else.”
“For future reference, a pocket on the inside breast, in front of the heart, is normally the most secure from magical theft,” Jason informed him, turning to face the other direction.
“Yeah, well, I’m generally more worried about the non-magical kind,” Kari said, loosening his belt enough to stick his hand into his underwear. Man, it was awkward doing this with someone else in the room. “Got it.” Jason turned back around, and Kari handed it over before re-doing his belt and pulling his shirt back down.
“Unsettlingly warm,” Jason commented, looking intensely displeased with the situation.
“At least I kept it secure! So, what exactly is a shard of avarice?”
“It contains a fragment of the powers of the demon Mammon.”
“It contains fucking what now.”
Jason opened the box, pulled out the necklace, and place it in the middle of the super magic circle looking runes on the floor. He stepped out, and Kari watched with nervous excitement as he finished some part of the circle, not with chalk, but with a finger that nonetheless caused white marks to appear on the floor.
It could be show business. It could absolutely just be show business. Special effects.
“Normally, I would just dispose of it, but someone paid a million dollars for it and then demanded proof.”
“Wow, he sounds super smart and reasonable.”
“Kari, this is very important. Do not under any circumstances get closer to the circle than you are now.” Jason’s eyes were deep jade and deadly serious. Kari bit his lip and nodded.
Jason stood at the edge of the circle and held out his hands towards it. This was all looking super fucking magical.
“On twisted thoughts the hunger feeds,
Desires all, deceives, misleads.
By ancient word, and binding deed,
Reveal thy curse, the demon’s seed.”
Kari neither screamed nor yelped, which was mostly because he was already fully prepared for something spooktacular to happen. As soon as Jason started to chant, the circle began to glow, classic magic stuff there, and then the necklace began to shake , which was sick but maybe you could do with a magnet? And then it started to smoke , which could definitely be done a lot of ways, but as the smoke spread out, it filled inside the circle and only inside the circle, making an obvious line that almost seemed like a wall. Kari was less sure how you’d do that, but it was probably doable.
The room started to stink. The stone on the necklace flashed, then started to hover into the air, which, again, magnets maybe, but also holy shit. It flashed again, then a third time, and then with a bright light, the smoke suddenly coalesced into a face . This was the part Kari was proud at himself for not making any embarrassing noises at. He almost jumped backwards, but didn ’t. The face was fucked up , all twisted and distorted with a wide open mouth and sharp, jagged teeth. There were two glowing points inside the smoke where the eyes would be.
If this was special effects, it was very good special effects. Kari felt the palm of his gloves heating up, which had definitely never happened before and maybe Jason had snuck something in… but no, he’d only ever held one of them, and Kari could feel it along the stitches on both palms.
He felt a surge of nausea. There was no way that thing was real. Right?
He had come here to see real magic.
Okay, yes, but he hadn’t thought he actually would .
“This,” Jason explained, turning towards Kari. “Is a bit of the essence of Mammon, Demon of Greed. There was once a much greater magical orb, called Avarice, that contained a great portion of his power. It was wielded at one time by Morgaine le Fey—
“You are for real shitting me, that is not a real person,” Kari interrupted.
“Not important,” Jason said, brushing off something that seemed very important, actually. “It was destroyed, but several shards survived and still contained a fragment of his demonic influence. This is one such shard. If held or, God forbid, worn around the neck, it will whisper… recommendations. Advice. On how one might obtain what they desire most, and it will amplify these desires. Over time, it will lead people to more and more extreme actions to satisfy themselves.”
“I get the picture.” Kari said. “I can’t get any closer?”
“I would advise against it.”
“Can I kinda… walk around? As long as I don’t get any closer?”
“Still not convinced?” Jason asked. Kari shook his head.
“I mean, I don’t want to be one of those idiots who sees one flashy light show and is all demons are super real and I saw one dudes. It looks real. It sure fucking smells real.”
Jason snapped his fingers. “Solidify.”
All at once, the smoke coalesced. A small, lizard-like, humanoid-ish figure dropped to the ground. It scurried around the circle, then up the invisible wall the smoke had emphasized like a gecko in a tank. This time, Kari maybe squeaked a little bit.
“Oh my god how does it smell worse now.”
“That stench is the pits of hell,” Jason informed him.
“Yeah, yeah, I got that. Ugh, it’s like an army of eggs farted while someone threw up rotting meat.”
“You get used to it.”
“Are you used to it?!” Kari demanded. Jason didn’t give off demon worshiper vibes, that was for fucking sure.
“More than I’d like to be.”
Unsettling! Bad! Don’t like any of that!
“Okay. Alright. Fine. One last thing, and then I’ll… one last thing.”
“You can’t touch it.”
“I super do not want to touch it thanks. I just need you to look at me. Like, right in the eyes.” Jason turned, and did so, his green eyes serious and yet somehow gentle on Kari’s. Kari’s stomach flipped, and he ignored it. “Tell me it’s real. Promise me it’s real and you’re not just tricking me for a necklace.”
“Kari Swanson,” Jason said, or maybe kind of intoned. “I, Jason of the Blood, regret to inform you that demons are real and this necklace contained a shard of demonic essence. If you had kept it, it would have led to your ruin.”
Kari absolutely believed him. He turned away.
“Yeah, okay, fuck. Get rid of it. I don’t want a thing to do with that shit.”
“Banish,” Jason said with another snap of his fingers. Kari took a few deep breaths before turning back around, and when he did, Jason was opening up a few windows, probably to release that fucking stench.
The cord of the necklace, and the metal holding the stone, were still in the circle. The stone itself, notably, was not. The palms of Kari’s hands were no longer burning.
Alright. Alright. Cool, neat, cool cool, great, super. Demons.
“Do you need to sit down?” Jason asked, and Kari tried to look super tough and not at all shaken, and it lasted about three seconds.
“I could maybe use a glass of water,” he allowed. He didn’t say anything at all when Jason reached out to steady him on the stairs down the tower.
Jason
Kari Swanson handled seeing a demonic presence about as well as anyone did. A little better, even. There was no screaming. His hands shook, but only a little, and he steadied himself as he wordlessly sipped a glass of ice water, sitting at Jason’s counter. Jason allowed him time to process before starting in on the Dangers of Magic lecture.
“So that was kind of fucked up,” Kari said finally.
“I did warn you,” Jason reminded him.
“You super did, yeah.”
“This is the sort of danger one faces while chasing after magic.”
Kari made a face. “ Not all magic comes from demons. ” He said this with a lot of confidence for a boy who hadn’t believed they were real fifteen minutes ago. “I have absolutely no interest in demons or demonic magic. None. Nil. Nada. I did not go to eleven years of Hebrew school to start in with that shit. I am looking for non-demonic sources of magic.”
“You had no way of telling that one was demonic, and you purchased it,” Jason pointed out. Kari was silent again.
“My gloves heated up, up there. Why didn’t they do that when I picked it up?”
“I imagine the demonic power wasn’t potent enough before it was forcibly revealed. Stealth was part of the properties of the stone.”
“Gross,” Kari said. He wasn’t wrong. He was quiet again for a time. Then, “You knew right away, though, didn’t you? You were bidding like hell on that thing. You went up to like a quarter mil.”
“I realized, belatedly, you may have been bidding on it simply because I was.”
Kari shook his head. “No, I heard from… sources… that the necklace was something real. I mean, they say that about a lot of things, but it was enough to get me interested. I was always going to win it.”
“You can see now how that would be a poor decision,” Jason pointed out. “There won’t always be someone around to pull you, somewhat literally, out of the fire.”
Kari chewed idly on his bottom lip, which generally signified he was considering something, or thinking very hard.
“What if there was?” he said, with the tone of someone talking to themselves.
“Pardon?”
“What if there always was someone to pull my ass out of the fire?” His focus came out of the distance and zeroed in on Jason. His dark blue eyes looked intense, but as he spoke, a smile began to form on his lips. “You can tell when something’s demonic. Maybe even when something’s real magic.”
“I have no interest in babysitting you, or in helping you on your fool’s errand,” Jason shot him down immediately.
“You don’t have to do either,” Kari said, starting to smile a bit more now. “I’m going to keep buying magic shit. You know it, I know it. Like, you were probably hoping this would put the quite-literal fear of God in me, right?”
“That would be a best case scenario, yes,” Jason said dryly. It very rarely worked out so well, because people who wanted magic weren’t very sane or smart to begin with.
“But now I know for a fact magic is real—
“Demon magic.”
Kari waved his hand, as if clearing out some leftover demonic smoke. “Other stuff too. I didn’t imagine it; it’s real. So obviously I’m going to keep looking for it.”
“Is that the obvious conclusion?”
“To a seventeen-year-old billionaire? Uh, yeah. But listen to me, this is actually smart, maybe, I think.”
“I strongly suspect it’s not.”
“I have like, way more money than you,” Kari said. This was true. Kari’s father appeared to give him quite literally anything he wanted. He’d barely even batted an eye at dropping nearly $1,500,000 on a necklace. “I probably for sure don’t have more connections, but I’m getting things from place that aren’t just sketchy auctions. In fact, I have a bunch at home that you didn’t know about.”
Deeply concerning, but not altogether surprising.
“So, hear me out here. I buy things. You look at them. If you tell me any of them are dangerous, I hand them straight over, no fussing, no… okay, maybe questions asked, but if it’s so dangerous you don’t even want to tell me why it’s dangerous, I’ll probably let that lie at this point. I won’t do anything with any of them until you’ve had a chance to look them over. This way, you get a bunch of dangerous magic off the streets, like that shard of Avarice thing, and you’re not limited by your own liquid assets.” Kari looked very excited now, which was unfortunate, because it wasn’t actually the worst idea.
It wasn’t a good idea , not by any means. It involved a child. But Kari wasn’t wrong; he was a great deal wealthier than Jason. The Swanson fortune rivaled the Wayne’s, and a lot less of it was spent on charitable endeavors. And if he was going to be purchasing them regardless of Jason’s advice…
“I can fly you out to my place in Metropolis,” Kari rushed on, eyes alight with hope. “You can look over all the shit I have stashed away, and you can have any of it that’s dangerous. I always handle them with the gloves, so if they protect me from some stuff, I might not have even noticed some of it had magic.”
“They protect you specifically from demonic and angelic energies,” Jason warned you. “Primarily via touch, and only somewhat.”
“Did you just say angelic energies oh my God.”
“Your father wouldn’t have an issue with you inviting a grown man to your house? A grown man with whom you profess to be friends?”
“You’re important to my growth as a young man,” Kari stated, as if it made sense and wasn’t a completely insane thing to say.
“I’m what?”
He waved his hand again. “It’s a dad thing. Don’t worry about it. He’ll be fine with it, I mean hell, he’ll probably like you. You’re British, and a doctor. Great influence.”
“I am not a ‘great influence.’” He was maybe the worst influence. Well, not the worst. John Constantine did exist.
“You kept me from getting possessed by a demon of greed. You’re the best influence.”
Kari, A Few Weeks Later
Kari watched from where he perched eagerly on the arm of a lounge chair as Dr. Jason Blood carefully looked over Kari’s entire magical collection, which was stored in a walk-in closet. A secure walk-in closet, but still a walk-in closet.
True to his word, Kari had bought him plane tickets as soon as Jason had agreed to the plan. Well, what he’d actually done was add Jason to his SkyMiles card, calling it a ‘gesture of trust.’ Kari was trying to do a lot of gestures of trust. Jason could buy his own plane tickets on his own schedule; Kari would make time. This was important shit. He had a cool older magic friend who was going to keep him from getting demon’d. Not getting demon’d was now one of Kari’s number one priorities, a fact which Jason seemed to recognize and appreciate, to a degree.
Both Griz and Dad had given Jason the once, twice, and thrice over when they thought Kari wouldn’t notice. They weren’t mean about it, just probing. Jason seemed to be cool with it, so Kari let it slide. He knew they were just looking out for him; it was good for one’s parents to be a bit wary of the grown man their teenager brought home. It was probably the most suspicion towards Kari’s decision-making that Dad had ever shown in Kari’s life, and honestly, for some weird reason, Kari kind of appreciated it.
Griz had descended into talking about Jason’s car, which meant he approved. Dad and Jason had ultimately wound up discussing some artist dude called Nicholas Hilliard, which Kari knew meant that Jason had gotten the Dad seal of approval, too. Kari didn’t necessarily think Dad’s judgment was better than his—he was actually super sure it wasn’t, because Dad was friends with Lex Luthor—but it was still nice. And Griz actually did have better judgment than Kari, for sure. He always seemed to know when someone was up to shit.
And so now Jason Blood, Family Friend TM , was in Kari’s closet looking at his magic stuff collection. He was wearing a suit jacket over a turtleneck sweater. He looked super cool, and Kari was being normal.
Finally, he held up a pearl bracelet. “I’m taking this one.”
“Holy shit,” Kari breathed, stuck between depressed only one of his items was magic and amazed that one of them was magic. “What is it?”
“It was once worn by the divine Spirit of Mercy.”
“That sounds like a good thing?” Kari posited.
“It attracts the wrong sort. Also, it holds shards of her memory, which you would not enjoy.”
“The divine Spirit of Mercy has a gender?”
Jason paused. “Hm. I never asked.”
“You had an opportunity to fucking ask.”
“It was a long time ago,” Jason said, as if that answered literally anything. “The rest, you can keep.”
“Is any of it magical?”
“No.” Kari deflated. “Well.” Kari reinflated. “This top won’t spin if there are any ghosts nearby.”
“That is literally the opposite of what they said it would do, but also still kind of awesome, but also I hate knowing ghosts are real!” Kari said in an excited and conflicted rush. “Having an item I have to check regularly to see if there are ghosts around is a worse curse than the demon amulet.”
“It’s not.”
“It’s not,” Kari agreed. “I still don’t like it.”
“Do you want me to take it?”
“No, no, I’ll keep it! I can use it to check artifacts for ghosts.”
“It will only work if the ghosts leave the host artifact.”
“Augh I hate that but I also love it!”
And so it went. Kari bought things at a steady pace, and Jason regularly flew out to check them for problems. The Swanson estate knew Jason as Kari’s mildly eccentric but still very respectable art friend. Kari’s dad tried to talk to Kari about old artists Kari didn’t know with more frequency. And Kari always, always, told Jason whenever he got a new magical artifact.
Except for the time he didn’t.