20. Children of The Mind
They all screamed, and tried to rush to Giovanni's side to help him. But he waved them away and told them again to get the other children out. "Look, you can use Magick now! I fixed it again! Go ahead and rescue the other kids!!"
"I see you're gonna be a royal pain in the ass…," Benjamin croaked, still partly buried. That got everybody moving again.
Benjamin was emerging laboriously from the hole in the ground, with his hair matted with clods of mud and all his clothes ruined and in tatters, yet without surrendering his hold on Giovanni's ankle. Giovanni had fallen on the ground, and twisted and twisted around, trying to loosen the grip of the hand holding on to him, but to no avail: it was latched on to him like an iron manacle.
The comparison gave him an idea. It was a crazy idea, but it was better than nothing at all at this point. He thought, if the hand were actually made of iron, and got rusted badly enough, it might break apart in pieces, right?
"Get ready to attack…!" Giovanni yelled at the Furies. Agatha was using all of her Magick to heal Wozniak, while Adelaide was standing next to Johannsen and Tabitha. They looked back in time to see Giovanni bend forward and grab a hold of Benoni's hand. He closed his eyes to help himself concentrate harder than he had ever done in his whole life. Benoni smiled, thinking that Giovanni would struggle to pry Benoni's hand off, and admired his courage. But his smile turned into an open "O" of surprise, when he saw a bluish glow sparkle for a moment in between Giovanni's fingers, and watched incredulous as his hand first cracked into a million spiderweb-like fissures and then crumbled to dust: Giovanni had first used Magick to turn the hand into actual iron, and then made it rust completely. Benjamin looked at the stump where his hand had been perched for the last six thousand years, and felt a vague disquiet at first when he realized he wasn't quite as indestructible as he had thought before. Immediately after, he felt his chest swell with pride at Giovanni's abilities. After all, for a thousand years Benoni/Benjamin had run his own Eugenics experiment, trying to breed the most powerful anti-magician. Not only had he succeeded, but, as a bonus, Giovanni also seemed to be the most powerful magician, ever.
While Benoni enjoyed his quiet moment of triumph, Giovanni was scrambling on all fours to get away from the monster. When he was a couple of feet away, he yelled:
"Now!! Everyone together at once, let 'im have it, everything you've got!!!"
The Furies dropped their granny-façade altogether, and with their faces set in terrifying scowls advanced towards Benjamin like a charge from the Valkyries themselves, while electrical discharges and flame whirlwinds poured out from their clenched hands and caromed along the hallway, lashing Benjamin's body and leaving sooty tracks across his face and body. Wozniak, now with his masculine appearance intact and his shoulder healed, first conjured chain links to come crawling to him from all corners of the cabin and then set them to orbit closely around his body and limbs. The chain links then transformed into barbed wire and started spinning faster and faster around him, until he became a man-shaped buzzsaw, and then he hurled himself against Benjamin once again. Johannsen pushed Garret Feldman back into the room, because he had peeked out for a moment, and made the door dissapear. Then, he stood still, closed his eyes, and chanted his Magick spells to command the cabin itself to attack Benjamin. In a brief moment, shards of glass, lengths of plumbing piping, and wooden beams projected towards Benjamin, trying to impale his body in some sort of inside-out sea urching. Benjamin's body still proved impenetrable, but he was pinned in place, unable to move.
Meanwhile, Giovanni had cowered against a corner, stupefied to see the extent of his teachers' terrifying abilities.
Benjamin closed his eyes and submitted to the pain. He had spent the last one thousand years feeling pain and pleasure only dimly, as if they were vague childhood memories, and he welcomed this opportunity to enjoy intense sensations once again. Meanwhile, he was drowned in a pool of electrical sparkles and flame. He felt the cabin pressing against his skin, trying to breach his body. He welcomed Wozniak's cruel blows, kicks and thrusts as if they were loving caresses from an old lover. And, after a moment or two, he grew tired and bored with it altogether.
Almost casually, he swiped his remaining hand in a slashing arc across Wozniak, and his head rolled off, separated from its body by the titanic and monstruous strength of the vampire. Wozniak's body took two steps and then collapsed, still wrapped in wriggling barbwire. While Wozniak's head was bouncing on the floor for the first time, Benjamin broke out of the cabin's deadly embrace as if it were a flimsy cobweb, and had already moved so quickly that he seemed to have disappeared from where he had been standing and immediately appeared in front of Johannsen, bypassing the Furies altogether. He stood there for a second, looking down on the old man, who still had his eyes closed, and then whispered, "Die…" Johannsen fell sideways, his brain flooded with blood from all the arteries and veins inside his skull, which had all burst at the same time. And then he turned around and called out to the Furies.
The three old ladies and Giovanni did a double take when they noticed that Benjamin had been in one place first and immediately after he was in the opposite end of the hallway. And then they noticed the two bodies on the floor. Giovanni blanched and felt nauseated, and the Furies seemed more furious than scared.
"Don't feel bad, you're just not as good as Giovanni, that's all…," and he smiled his shark smile again. "You see, there are three kinds of magicians: the magician of the mouth, who needs to use spells and potions to make the Magick flow; then there's the magician of the hand, who can control his mind, but still needs gestures to control his body before he can release the Magick… Well, you people are an intermediate level between those two types of magicians… And that's not good enough to take a stand against me. It was barely good enough a thousand years ago to eke out a stalemate, but you people are a thousand years too late. I am no magician, as I said before, but that's because I'm no longer a man. I'm something else altogether. Let me show you what the Spirit of the Blood lets me do, by acting as a bridge between the material and the spiritual worlds. You won't understand when it happens, so let me explain first: I'm going to use my will to jolt your soul out of your body. I will literaly push you off your own skins! Here we go…"
Benjamin extended his hands towards the Furies, and the three old ladies crumpled to the ground, their eyes still open, and their last breath still in their open mouth.
Giovanni threw up.
And then he dry-heaved a couple of times, for good measure.
When he finished, he looked up bleary-eyed, only to find Benjamin hunkering down in front of him, barely a handspan away. Giovanni thrusted himself backwards and pedaled desperately, trying to push himself into the wall, away from the monster in front of him, who looked upon him with his shark smile and tilting his head sideways, like a curious puppy.
"Do you know what's the third type of magician?," Benjamin asked. "No? Well, let me tell you, then, but please stop the spastic fit, alright? Okay? Good. Well, the third type is the magician of the mind. He is the one that holds reality subject to his will. He decides what is and what is not. Maybe Merlin existed, maybe not, who knows? I never met him, but if there ever was a magician of the mind, he'd be the only one in the whole history of humanity. That is, until today. You have shown yourself to be the first known magician of the mind. I also have high hopes for Circe and Garret. I think they have the potential, but they haven't made all the mental connections that you so readily achieved. I'm going to need you to show them the appropriate mind-set in order to cancel out the Magick… Actually, I'm gonna need you to have children with each other, both you and Garret, with Circe, but one thing at a time…"
"Did you put thoughts of Circe in my mind? Were you making me think of her all the time?"
"Yes! Yes, I did!" Benjamin smile grew wider when he saw the disappointment in Giovanni's face. "But I didn't put her in your heart. That, you two did on your own. See? I put thoughts of Circe in Garret's mind, too, but he turned them into hateful images. Instead, you treasured them in your heart, and so did Circe. That actually worked out nicely, if I say so myself! Now, let's collect your pals and let's go!"
"Wh- What do you mean, let's go?"
"Yes, I still have many things to teach you three, and this time I'm not going to risk it, I'm not going to leave anything to chance. I will keep you three safe, forever. Well, I mean, until you die. And you need to start working with them on their ability to cancel out Magick. That's what this is all about: Once there are enough of your descendants, and I mean, a critical number of them, the perpetuation of the effect will happen spontaneously, as it first did with the genetic mutation that allowed the first humans to be sensitive to Magick, and to be its agents at the same time. This time around, you are the first ones to do precisely the opposite, and soon enough there will be no Magick left in the world. Simple, see? I win again!"
"Not if you can't have us!" Giovanni scowled at Benjamin and assumed an air of determination. Immediately afterwards, he disappeared, and then appeared inside the Furies' office, next to Circe. He grabbed her hand, pulled Garret from the back of the neck and then disappeared with both children in tow.
They were never seen again by any of their relatives.
Outside, in the hallway, Benjamin barely had time to arch an eyebrow before Giovanni had accomplished his elaborate departure.
"I was right: He's gonna be a major pain in the ass… Ah, Giovanni! If you only knew that your minds are the anti-Orion's Belt in the dark sky of human souls. I can sense you wherever you go. In me, the Spirit of the Blood sees all the souls blaring out their dreams and hopes, weaving a sweaty net around this world, trapped in their tangled Magick. And the three of you stand out as the only holes in the net. Ah, but I can't wait to see the net disappear forever! Very well, I'll observe from afar, for now…"
Benjamin also disappeared into thin air.
***
Seven Weeks Later
"Minerva, that's all I know: I received a hand-written note, saying that Benjamin is not coming back this time, and that, 'Good riddance to bad rubbish.' Yes, I know, that's what I said when he first vacated the Ministry. But I do not know what to make of it. For certain, we cannot expect him to be trustworthy. After all, he is a monster. But on the other hand, just this morning the Unspeakables issued a secret statement to me, to the Minister, in which they report that the Ever-Locked Room has been emptied of all the treasures and artifacts that were there just a week ago by persons unknown. Perhaps he is really not coming back. Look, I will leave an Auror posted at the school at all times, but I will need Potter and company back at their regular duties, you understand?"
"Of course, Minister. I can only hope he is truly gone. Benjamin the Vampire, gone from the Ministry of Magic for good, and out into the world: Woe to the world…" McGonogall whispered the last words.
Minister Shacklebolt agreed wholly, but he couldn't avoid feeling morbidly relieved that his administration would be remembered in history as the time when the magical folk were finally rid of their Truce with the worst monster in the world.
They all screamed, and tried to rush to Giovanni's side to help him. But he waved them away and told them again to get the other children out. "Look, you can use Magick now! I fixed it again! Go ahead and rescue the other kids!!"
"I see you're gonna be a royal pain in the ass…," Benjamin croaked, still partly buried. That got everybody moving again.
Benjamin was emerging laboriously from the hole in the ground, with his hair matted with clods of mud and all his clothes ruined and in tatters, yet without surrendering his hold on Giovanni's ankle. Giovanni had fallen on the ground, and twisted and twisted around, trying to loosen the grip of the hand holding on to him, but to no avail: it was latched on to him like an iron manacle.
The comparison gave him an idea. It was a crazy idea, but it was better than nothing at all at this point. He thought, if the hand were actually made of iron, and got rusted badly enough, it might break apart in pieces, right?
"Get ready to attack…!" Giovanni yelled at the Furies. Agatha was using all of her Magick to heal Wozniak, while Adelaide was standing next to Johannsen and Tabitha. They looked back in time to see Giovanni bend forward and grab a hold of Benoni's hand. He closed his eyes to help himself concentrate harder than he had ever done in his whole life. Benoni smiled, thinking that Giovanni would struggle to pry Benoni's hand off, and admired his courage. But his smile turned into an open "O" of surprise, when he saw a bluish glow sparkle for a moment in between Giovanni's fingers, and watched incredulous as his hand first cracked into a million spiderweb-like fissures and then crumbled to dust: Giovanni had first used Magick to turn the hand into actual iron, and then made it rust completely. Benjamin looked at the stump where his hand had been perched for the last six thousand years, and felt a vague disquiet at first when he realized he wasn't quite as indestructible as he had thought before. Immediately after, he felt his chest swell with pride at Giovanni's abilities. After all, for a thousand years Benoni/Benjamin had run his own Eugenics experiment, trying to breed the most powerful anti-magician. Not only had he succeeded, but, as a bonus, Giovanni also seemed to be the most powerful magician, ever.
While Benoni enjoyed his quiet moment of triumph, Giovanni was scrambling on all fours to get away from the monster. When he was a couple of feet away, he yelled:
"Now!! Everyone together at once, let 'im have it, everything you've got!!!"
The Furies dropped their granny-façade altogether, and with their faces set in terrifying scowls advanced towards Benjamin like a charge from the Valkyries themselves, while electrical discharges and flame whirlwinds poured out from their clenched hands and caromed along the hallway, lashing Benjamin's body and leaving sooty tracks across his face and body. Wozniak, now with his masculine appearance intact and his shoulder healed, first conjured chain links to come crawling to him from all corners of the cabin and then set them to orbit closely around his body and limbs. The chain links then transformed into barbed wire and started spinning faster and faster around him, until he became a man-shaped buzzsaw, and then he hurled himself against Benjamin once again. Johannsen pushed Garret Feldman back into the room, because he had peeked out for a moment, and made the door dissapear. Then, he stood still, closed his eyes, and chanted his Magick spells to command the cabin itself to attack Benjamin. In a brief moment, shards of glass, lengths of plumbing piping, and wooden beams projected towards Benjamin, trying to impale his body in some sort of inside-out sea urching. Benjamin's body still proved impenetrable, but he was pinned in place, unable to move.
Meanwhile, Giovanni had cowered against a corner, stupefied to see the extent of his teachers' terrifying abilities.
Benjamin closed his eyes and submitted to the pain. He had spent the last one thousand years feeling pain and pleasure only dimly, as if they were vague childhood memories, and he welcomed this opportunity to enjoy intense sensations once again. Meanwhile, he was drowned in a pool of electrical sparkles and flame. He felt the cabin pressing against his skin, trying to breach his body. He welcomed Wozniak's cruel blows, kicks and thrusts as if they were loving caresses from an old lover. And, after a moment or two, he grew tired and bored with it altogether.
Almost casually, he swiped his remaining hand in a slashing arc across Wozniak, and his head rolled off, separated from its body by the titanic and monstruous strength of the vampire. Wozniak's body took two steps and then collapsed, still wrapped in wriggling barbwire. While Wozniak's head was bouncing on the floor for the first time, Benjamin broke out of the cabin's deadly embrace as if it were a flimsy cobweb, and had already moved so quickly that he seemed to have disappeared from where he had been standing and immediately appeared in front of Johannsen, bypassing the Furies altogether. He stood there for a second, looking down on the old man, who still had his eyes closed, and then whispered, "Die…" Johannsen fell sideways, his brain flooded with blood from all the arteries and veins inside his skull, which had all burst at the same time. And then he turned around and called out to the Furies.
The three old ladies and Giovanni did a double take when they noticed that Benjamin had been in one place first and immediately after he was in the opposite end of the hallway. And then they noticed the two bodies on the floor. Giovanni blanched and felt nauseated, and the Furies seemed more furious than scared.
"Don't feel bad, you're just not as good as Giovanni, that's all…," and he smiled his shark smile again. "You see, there are three kinds of magicians: the magician of the mouth, who needs to use spells and potions to make the Magick flow; then there's the magician of the hand, who can control his mind, but still needs gestures to control his body before he can release the Magick… Well, you people are an intermediate level between those two types of magicians… And that's not good enough to take a stand against me. It was barely good enough a thousand years ago to eke out a stalemate, but you people are a thousand years too late. I am no magician, as I said before, but that's because I'm no longer a man. I'm something else altogether. Let me show you what the Spirit of the Blood lets me do, by acting as a bridge between the material and the spiritual worlds. You won't understand when it happens, so let me explain first: I'm going to use my will to jolt your soul out of your body. I will literaly push you off your own skins! Here we go…"
Benjamin extended his hands towards the Furies, and the three old ladies crumpled to the ground, their eyes still open, and their last breath still in their open mouth.
Giovanni threw up.
And then he dry-heaved a couple of times, for good measure.
When he finished, he looked up bleary-eyed, only to find Benjamin hunkering down in front of him, barely a handspan away. Giovanni thrusted himself backwards and pedaled desperately, trying to push himself into the wall, away from the monster in front of him, who looked upon him with his shark smile and tilting his head sideways, like a curious puppy.
"Do you know what's the third type of magician?," Benjamin asked. "No? Well, let me tell you, then, but please stop the spastic fit, alright? Okay? Good. Well, the third type is the magician of the mind. He is the one that holds reality subject to his will. He decides what is and what is not. Maybe Merlin existed, maybe not, who knows? I never met him, but if there ever was a magician of the mind, he'd be the only one in the whole history of humanity. That is, until today. You have shown yourself to be the first known magician of the mind. I also have high hopes for Circe and Garret. I think they have the potential, but they haven't made all the mental connections that you so readily achieved. I'm going to need you to show them the appropriate mind-set in order to cancel out the Magick… Actually, I'm gonna need you to have children with each other, both you and Garret, with Circe, but one thing at a time…"
"Did you put thoughts of Circe in my mind? Were you making me think of her all the time?"
"Yes! Yes, I did!" Benjamin smile grew wider when he saw the disappointment in Giovanni's face. "But I didn't put her in your heart. That, you two did on your own. See? I put thoughts of Circe in Garret's mind, too, but he turned them into hateful images. Instead, you treasured them in your heart, and so did Circe. That actually worked out nicely, if I say so myself! Now, let's collect your pals and let's go!"
"Wh- What do you mean, let's go?"
"Yes, I still have many things to teach you three, and this time I'm not going to risk it, I'm not going to leave anything to chance. I will keep you three safe, forever. Well, I mean, until you die. And you need to start working with them on their ability to cancel out Magick. That's what this is all about: Once there are enough of your descendants, and I mean, a critical number of them, the perpetuation of the effect will happen spontaneously, as it first did with the genetic mutation that allowed the first humans to be sensitive to Magick, and to be its agents at the same time. This time around, you are the first ones to do precisely the opposite, and soon enough there will be no Magick left in the world. Simple, see? I win again!"
"Not if you can't have us!" Giovanni scowled at Benjamin and assumed an air of determination. Immediately afterwards, he disappeared, and then appeared inside the Furies' office, next to Circe. He grabbed her hand, pulled Garret from the back of the neck and then disappeared with both children in tow.
They were never seen again by any of their relatives.
Outside, in the hallway, Benjamin barely had time to arch an eyebrow before Giovanni had accomplished his elaborate departure.
"I was right: He's gonna be a major pain in the ass… Ah, Giovanni! If you only knew that your minds are the anti-Orion's Belt in the dark sky of human souls. I can sense you wherever you go. In me, the Spirit of the Blood sees all the souls blaring out their dreams and hopes, weaving a sweaty net around this world, trapped in their tangled Magick. And the three of you stand out as the only holes in the net. Ah, but I can't wait to see the net disappear forever! Very well, I'll observe from afar, for now…"
Benjamin also disappeared into thin air.
***
Seven Weeks Later
"Minerva, that's all I know: I received a hand-written note, saying that Benjamin is not coming back this time, and that, 'Good riddance to bad rubbish.' Yes, I know, that's what I said when he first vacated the Ministry. But I do not know what to make of it. For certain, we cannot expect him to be trustworthy. After all, he is a monster. But on the other hand, just this morning the Unspeakables issued a secret statement to me, to the Minister, in which they report that the Ever-Locked Room has been emptied of all the treasures and artifacts that were there just a week ago by persons unknown. Perhaps he is really not coming back. Look, I will leave an Auror posted at the school at all times, but I will need Potter and company back at their regular duties, you understand?"
"Of course, Minister. I can only hope he is truly gone. Benjamin the Vampire, gone from the Ministry of Magic for good, and out into the world: Woe to the world…" McGonogall whispered the last words.
Minister Shacklebolt agreed wholly, but he couldn't avoid feeling morbidly relieved that his administration would be remembered in history as the time when the magical folk were finally rid of their Truce with the worst monster in the world.
THE END
Daniel A. Franco
3/19/09
11/17/09
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