7:17am – The Current Time

7:00pm – Soundcheck

9:00pm – Showtime

R-word’s portal shenanigans had depleted our supply of common essences. That may or may not have been his goal; gods worked with enough contingencies you could never really guess what they actually wanted.

And typically, they needed to dispatch angels and demons if they wanted to screw with someone on Earth, but there were always loopholes. When I got trapped in the morgue and forced Handsome Alex to open a bone portal through the voidscape, it gave our enemy an opening.

And in the voidscape Mister R-word’s strength was unlimited. Dude could just do whatever he wanted. So when he noticed me humming along in my spiffy little port-bubble he placed a condition on it which forbade the transport of blood and tissue essences. Not only did this result in your boy Kirby getting peeled like a goddamn grape, but it also ripped away every single scrap of blood and tissue I’d reaped in the morgue and tossed it all into the void.

Credit where credit’s due: it was a solid prank.

But when combined with my own fuckup that cost Handsome Alex most of the bone essences he’d amassed over the course of the past year just to conjure the portal in the first place, and the fact we still had to complete his final form before sound check, what all this ultimately meant was that we wouldn’t be able to animate any flesh or blood or bone golems for the foreseeable future.

Fortunately, R-word had let me keep the specialized essences; the ones I’d need to transform our bandmates into supernatural badasses worthy of jamming with us. I had no idea why he’d done any of this, except that it was ultimately meant to unravel Alex.

Mina Diamond leaned forward from the bench across the cabin from me, watching closely while I dumped the contents of my pocket abyss. That was where essences went when I reaped them; a specialized extra-dimensional sack that could only store objects stolen from souls.

“So what exactly are you doing?” She motioned toward the weird objects popping into existence and floating in the air between us. “What is all that stuff?”

The essences all looked different from one another. Those which were associated with attributes like strength and intellect and presence and whatnot manifested as cute little wisps of colored smoke, swirling in a sphere. They were weightless, like tiny worlds made of dancing gas, trapped inside a capsule.

Meanwhile, the talent and trait essences were gnarly, asymmetrical gobs of translucent angel-flesh. Seriously, the way the Astral Womb made souls was by composting dead angels. Needless to say, it took every scrap of my considerable resolve not to snatch the moist wads of divine viscera from the air to gobble them up like the forbidden wontons they were.

“Alright,” I began, “it’s real simple-like. All this shit is what you’d call magic. This right here is an agility essence.” I held up a tiny globe of swirling green mist and showed it to Mina. Then I traded it out for something that looked like a bleached hunk of pickled fairy foreskin. “And this is a pure, unadulterated, guitar solo.”

“It looks like a nutsack made of rainbow boogers.”

I held it up to the sun. “I’ll be damned. You’re right. Nice eye, kid. And great words. You ever write any lyrics?”

She beamed with pride. “When I get inspired, yeah.”

“That’s killer. You’ll have to show me what you’ve got some time.” I refocused her attention on the guitar-solo essence I was still holding between my thumb and forefinger. “Anyway, what I do with this little booger-scrote first, is I dissect it. To do that, I use my fingers.”

I cupped the waxy ball of speckled gristle in my left palm so she could continue to watch. It throbbed like something was trying to hatch out of it and glistened with glitter-filled beads of sweat. Then, using the long nail on my right pinkie, I punctured the top of its membrane. When I pulled my finger out it was lousy with foul, creamy custard.

“I really gotta dig way down in there if I’m gonna get to the good stuff.”

“Kirby. We have discussed this previously.” Handsome Alex’s eye-sockets pulsed with amber light. “There are limits.”

“Hmm?” I tipped the oozing essence toward my lips, threatening to slurp out the slimy innards. “Whatever do you mean?”

“There are limits to the behavior the subject of a compelling narrative will accept from their beloved uncle. Limits to what anyone can observe before rejecting their previously accepted reality. The story is our best solution. It is not perfect. And if the narrative unravels, I will hold you responsible.”

Had he chosen the word unravels on purpose?

Mina was in a trance. He’d paused her or something; I didn’t know he could do that. It was freaky.

“My bad.” I eyed Mina, sitting there motionless. “You don’t ever do me like that, do you? Just freeze me and wipe my memory when I’m being naughty or something?”

“You cannot be serious. Does it seem as though I exert undue influence over your deeds, Kirby? Does it, truly?”

“You’re right. I’m dumb. You can unpause her; I’ll behave.

Handsome Alex undid whatever he’d done to hit pause on Mina. She blinked a couple times, but otherwise gave no indication she was hip to what he’d just done. She remained focused on me and the essences orbiting in the air between us.

“Alright, the first step of soul alchemy is dissection.”

I concentrated on the guitar-solo essence and cast a spell:

[Soul Alchemy: Dissection]

Alchemy. Soul Magic.

Low Mana Cost

Rank: 5

Description:

[Rank 1]Allows the penetration of Essence Membranes.

[Rank 2]Extraction of Raw Essence is made possible.

[Rank 3]Stabilizes Raw Essence for further manipulation.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

[Rank 4]Allows the isolation of Essence Compounds within Raw Essence.

[Rank 5]Individual Essence Compounds may now be extracted and preserved.

As the universe’s first and shit I don’t know maybe only soul alchemist, my specialty was digging up and polishing the essence of essences. Separating the meta out of the metaphysical. There was actually a lot of extra junk inside a soul; that’s just genetics for you.

This was important because you could only screw with a soul a set number of times, even with permission from its owner. Good soul alchemy was all about making efficient essence conjunctions. Too many mutations and the damn things would just break.

“That’s how you make ghouls,” I told Mina. “And believe me, you do not want ghouls. Nothing worse for a band’s chemistry.”

“Next,” Handsome Alex interjected, “he is going to make his regular claim that Yoko was a ghoul. Do not believe his lies.”

I laughed. “Brother she’s like twenty. Watch this.” I turned to Mina. “Do you know who Yoko is?”

She gave a thin-lipped smile and shook her head, no.

The essence compounds I’d isolated and extracted were now levitating in the air alongside the other, whole essences. These looked like little fiber-optic worms, wriggling in four dimensions like living tesseracts you’d find at the bottom of a tequila bottle. There were currently five of them; three colored green and two blue.

“So these are essentially the sickest of the sickest licks and rifts and whatnot.” I indicated the two blue worms. “It’s more complicated than just that, of course, but for our purposes, and right now, it’ll do.”

“What are the green ones?”

“I call ‘em artifacts. Let me explain.” I took a deep breath. “You see, when the Astral Womb poops out a new soul, they get to go through this little tutorial bit as part of their pre-incarnative education. Basically it’s like preschool for baby-souls. They learn literally everything about the universe, only to forget it upon becoming mortal; so fucked up.” I chuckled at the Womb’s sadistic streak, but quickly regained my composure.

“Anyway. The baby-souls need to soak up all the information in the universe so they can make an informed decision about the path they want to take during their first few thousand incarnation cycles. Yadda yadda yadda; some of these iddy widdle souls will decide they want to grow up to be musicians, so they’ll climb back into the womb for a few million years while she imprints the basic essences they’re gonna need to pursue their destiny. When the souls are done baking, she cuts them in half and shoves one part into an egg and the other into a sperm. Really so incredibly hot every time I actually say this whole spiel out loud. That Astral Womb is one freaky—”

“Kirby,” Alex interrupted.

“Right, yeah. My bad. I’m focused like a laser-cannon mounted on a tiger-shark, Bud.” I gestured at the three green artifact-worms and elaborated for Mina: “So the artifacts we’re left with, those are the most basic-basics; the building blocks of the building blocks. Take the guitar-solo here; we’re talking about essence compounds like pentatonic scale and arpeggio.” I flicked away two of the wriggling, green essence compounds and they shrieked in agony as their existence came to an end. I chuckled. “Love that part.”

“Okay, so I think maybe I get it.” Mina got to her feet and looked at a floating wad of angel-meat from about an inch away. Completely unbothered. “You open up these nasty little pods. Inside you find some magic worms. Some of them are primo; some are whack. You squash the whack worms and you replace them with primo ones. Then you shove that ball of bespoke, 'roided-out ghost worms into my soul and it’ll make me shred harder?”

I looked at Handsome Alex. He was an unmoving skull and spinal column, but I could feel him smiling. This girl just got it. She was going to work out great. “Uh, yeah. I mean I do some more magic, if that matters. I have spells to purify the essences and then combine them in ways which create powerful synergies within individual essences. But I mean, you’re right. Really boils down to shoving magic worms into your soul-hole.”

“Kirby.”

“Sorry. There’s no such thing as a soul-hole. I just made that up.”

She wanted to stay awake for the whole deal but I knew she’d black out eventually. I asked her to lay down on the floor, at least. Then I did the magic; the shit I was really good at; the reason Handsome Alex kept bringing me back to life.

Mina’s eyes reflected the galaxy of essences dancing in the air above her while I orchestrated the alchemy with swooping, graceful gestures that looked absolutely ridiculous when performed by this frumpy-dumpy vessel.

The attribute essences; the swirling gas-midgets trapped inside glass-like capsules, collided and re-conjuncted into their perfected forms amidst a flourish of sparkling, sacred geometry. It was among the most beautiful sights in the cosmos.

The talent and trait essences burst into constellations of four-dimensional worms. Their shrieks filled the cabin as I eliminated the artifacts. Specks of worm-splatter rained down on Mina’s face. She spat and laughed, finally closing her eyes.

At the climax of my alchemical orchestra, I directed a fleet of elite essences into a vortex which drilled its way into her third eye. Yeah, you can run and tell your kundalini coach that it’s a real thing, but it’s not an actual eye so much as a spiritual sphincter; a spigot where a soul can enter or leave the body.

But not a literal soul-hole. Oh no, don’t dare call it that.

The Compelling Narrative had conditioned Mina to open up and accept the changes to her soul. But even with her cooperation, this was some serious shit. As the vortex drilled into her third eye, her back arched and she clawed at the floor. Her jaw clenched until one of her molars cracked and violent spasms wracked her entire body. I had loaded her up with the maximum number of conjunctions; agility, stamina, spirit, presence, and a suite of traits and talents. Her soul would need time to recover before we could progress her abilities any further, but for the first leg of the tour she should be more than adequate. I briefly glanced over her RNA to confirm my alchemy had worked:

Regular Nerd Appraisal:

Mina Diamond. Human. Female. Twenty-three years old.

Attributes:

5 Strength

17 Stamina

19 Agility

11 Intellect

15 Spirit

17 Presence

Spell and Powers:

NONE

Talents and Traits:

EPIC[Guitar Solo]

EPIC[Power Chord]

EPIC[Voodoo Child]

“Commendable work.” Handsome Alex’s eyes flared excitedly. “She will be a powerful addition to our skew. Voodoo child is a nice touch.”

“Hey I can do the classics; you’re not the only pro in this operation.”

“Good, because much remains for us to accomplish before sound check, and I will require a significant portion of the day to reconstitute my final form. And much shall I require of you, too.”

I felt Alex’s evil monologue coming so I lifted Mina off the floor and laid her on the bench beside her guitar case, tucking her under a blanket that came from somewhere. She’d be unconscious for another hour or two while her soul processed the changes. Then I settled in to listen while Alex did his thing:

“Tonight, my brother, our campaign begins at last.”

We sat then, the silence growing fat and awkward.

“That’s it?” I asked.

“We’re a little pressed for time.”

“Really? I mean didn’t we get a couple hours freed up when R-word juiced me up into the perfect frontman? Like we only need to implant one more narrative now, right?”

There was a knock on the cabin door.

“Correct. We need only implant the bass player. Please let him in.”

I slid the door open and this seven-foot tall Lurch-looking motherfucker was standing there looking down at me. Beside him, in an equally-enormous case, was an instrument so large it could only be a stand-up bass.

I shook my head at Handsome Alex. “Oh for fuck’s sake.”