With both hands entangled in my hair and pressed tightly against either side of my skull, half-covering my ears, I stared back and forth between the two women in front of me. My expression must have been amusing in its utter bewilderment, with my squinting eyes, wrinkled nose, and mouth that gaped uncomprehendingly. A couple times, my lips moved as though to say something, but no actual sound emerged aside from what might have passed as the whistling of a ready tea kettle. “Wh… wh… wha…” It was all I could do over those few seconds to turn the meaningless sounds into something approaching an actual word, if a rather uninspired one. “What?”
The sort-of sisters exchanged a glance with one another, before Bastet spoke. “Yes, I suppose I can understand how this news would be a bit overwhelming.”
“A bit?!” It was all I could do to make those words sound somewhat understandable. As it was, they still came out almost comically high-pitched. “Ka nefta lorep seah poush kaysoi.”
“Um.” Laein looked baffled. Actually, so did the others. “What was that? What did you say?”
“Huh?” I blinked uncertainly. “I said , ‘you’re saying I’m not even a human being anymore.’ I–wait.” Frowning, I replayed the words back in my head. “I… didn’t say that, did I? I said… wait, no, I did say that. That’s those exact words, but in the language of the Paunrashti. They were–uh, they’re an extinct species from a few million years ago, I guess. I um, my… some of my other selves interacted with some of those people. I guess I picked up their language and it’s stuck in my head. Well, to be fair, lorep isn’t exactly ‘human being,’ it’s more like ‘other sapient species,’ but still. And why did I suddenly start talking like that?!”
“You felt emotional,” Bastet murmured, “and their language popped out. I imagine other things like that will happen now and then. You do have a lot of information stored in your head. Even if most of it is locked away for your own psychological well-being, some of it is going to… well, leak out now and then.”
Taking a few long, deep breaths, I gave a slow nod. “Right. Sure, I guess. But seriously, you’re saying I’m not even human anymore and you think that’s a bit overwhelming?"
“You are still human in every way that matters,” Percy quickly put in. “Remember, you were changed to become a Bosch Heretic in the first place. Now your body has simply been altered in other ways. You remember what it means to be Fae, yes?”
Letting out a long, shaky breath while trying not to completely lose my mind, I nodded quickly. “Sure, Fae are either people who have been magically altered to become substantially different from their base species in a way that can be passed on to their descendants, or those same descendants. Only not always. I mean the traits aren’t always passed down. It’s… fuzzy what actually counts as Fae, but basically, ‘substantially magically altered at the genetic level’ or something like that, right? It’s different from being a Heretic, though some people think it should count.”
“That is essentially right, yes,” Bastet agreed. “When the Ankou put you back together, they mixed some of themselves up in there and now you’re basically a whole new, completely unheard of type of person. Natural Ankou Heretic is close, but as Persephone said, it’s more than that, deeper than that. It’s not that you’ve been granted a connection to them through bonding, it’s that they literally partially transformed you into a being who has some of their abilities. Something like that.”
“They said they were careful,” I muttered under my breath before exhaling. “But I guess I can’t really complain, huh? I mean, they did leave my pow–wait, what does being an Ankou-Fae even mean, exactly? Does it change how my powers work?”
Bastet held out a hand, waiting until I accepted it so she could examine my fingers for a moment. She took out a small, ruby-like stone and ran it along my knuckles, then up to my elbow before holding the thing to her eye to scrutinize. “Well, from what I can tell,” she finally announced, “you’ve retained all the powers you had before. No change there. The Ankou transferred those over completely. But from now on, every time you kill something, you’ll absorb all of its power, not just one part of it. You’ll absorb all their powers, and maybe some memories and skills too, depending. I’m not positive on that last point, we’ll have to see it in action. And, of course, it means Reaper-based technology and magic will respond to you the way it won’t respond to others. And other changes too, I’m sure. It might take awhile to figure all of them out, though.”
Slumping back against the nearby wall, I let those words wash over me. “Take awhile to figure out. Yeah, probably will. Maybe a few days just to start to figure out what it means to be transformed into a part-Ankou at the genetic level. Which is somehow different from being bonded to an Alter or made a Boscher. You’re saying I have full Reaping, like P–” I started to say Prosser, before realizing how dumb that would be. He hadn’t even been born yet, let alone become a Natural Reaper Heretic. Instead, I glanced toward Bastet herself. “Like you.”
“Not quite,” she replied. “I get a lot, more than Boschers, but it’s not quite full. I don’t know if any full Natural Reaper Heretics even exist, to be honest. If they do, they’ve been quiet about it.” She gave me another look then, frowning thoughtfully. “Just count yourself lucky that Grandfather has already determined that even so much as looking at you would be hazardous to the timeline, or there’s no way you’d get out of having him spend the next several weeks examining every molecule of you. He’s already deeply fascinated by this, even as removed from the situation as he is.”
Honestly, part of me almost wanted to risk that and let Grandfather take a look at me to make sure everything was still okay and that there weren’t going to be more unexpected side effects that I should know about. But I had no idea what the man would be able to see inside my DNA if he did examine me closely. What if it damaged the timeline in a way that we couldn’t fix? I had no idea what sort of damage that could be, but I did know it wasn’t worth risking. No matter how much I wanted answers.
Shaking off that impulse, I silently promised myself that I’d have as many qualified people as it took, including Grandfather, examine me in the future just to make sure. Not that I didn’t trust the Ankou to have done their best to put me back together the right way, of course. I just wasn’t completely certain that they were totally solid on what ‘the right way’ was. They were a fair bit… well, inhuman, and pretty new to the entire concept of not killing anyone who wasn’t a Reaper. As evidenced by the fact that they’d apparently managed to turn me into a part-Ankou in the first place.
This was going to take me a long time to wrap my head around, I knew that much immediately. Hell, this had already been a pretty absurd thing even before the whole Fae bit. After all, I still had all those memories of my duplicated selves in my head to call on whenever needed. That would’ve been a staggering thing all on its own, but now there was this too? If Bastet was right, and I had no reason to doubt her, I now had the same sort of full Reaping as Gabriel Prosser. That was going to change everything. And if it really meant I would get memories in addition to powers… I had no idea where that was going to go. I’d already thought the idea of getting everything from people with necromancy was ridiculous, and now there was this? Getting everything from everyone I killed? The possibilities that opened up, as well as the dangers…
Yeah, it was going to take a while for me to comprehend, to say the least. The very idea of being more than human, of actually being part-Ankou even in some small way, was staggering. Part of me was actually gleeful, to be honest, even if I was also a bit terrified. It would mean that I could protect the people I cared about even more effectively. But I also knew immediately it was an enormous responsibility, and that it would make me a target. Even more of one than I had already been. And that was a high bar. Look at Gabriel Prosser. I… I was going to have to talk to him once I got back to the future, that was for sure. I was going to have to talk to a lot of people, just as soon as doing so wouldn’t irrevocably alter the foundation of my reality.
And speaking of irrevocably altering my reality, the very concept of being changed like this was scary deep down. I didn’t know what other side effects it might have. Especially if this was something the Ankou had done entirely by accident. Hell, maybe I should call them back here and talk about this, find out exactly how much they had intended. After all, even if they hadn’t meant to do this, they would be the best people to talk to about what it meant. Or would they? After all, they were still figuring out who and what they were after everything that happened. Maybe they wouldn’t have any idea how to explain anything to me at all.
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I had no idea, but what I did know was that I had a lot more questions than answers right now. And it was going to take a long time for any of that to change. For the moment, I took a deep breath before asking, “But I’m okay from what you can tell? I mean, my heart isn’t about to explode or anything when I use my powers or kill something and absorb things from it? I have no idea if the Ankou knew how to make sure my body could withstand that sort of thing. Hell if it was an accident they might not have even known they needed to do anything like that. Or maybe they didn’t–”
Bastet held up a hand to stop me. “Breathe, Jacob. Or whatever your name is. You’re not about to explode, melt, or anything else just from using your powers or your new gifts. Your body can take all that, believe me. You were put back together properly. That includes being able to properly absorb these powers. I mean, as far as I can tell, anyway. You absorbed that Peridle just fine, right?”
“True,” I allowed, “but that was just a Peridle. It’s not like it had any thoughts of its own, and one tiny drop of extra regeneration isn’t going to make me explode or anything. At least–wait.” I shifted from one foot to the other. “Now that you mention it, I do feel a little… weird. And yeah, yeah, I know how that sounds. But seriously, I’m not just being paranoid. At least I don’t think I am. I feel funny, like… in my stomach. Or maybe in my chest, it just… it feels like I’m supposed to–you know how it is when you really need to burp but you can’t? It’s sort of like that. And also like when your ears need to pop. It’s weird.” Now I really was worried.
Bastet interrupted. “Okay, just breathe for a minute. Let me see something.” She took hold of my chin to stare deep into my eyes. I felt that same connection between us, feeling her emotions. She felt worried about me, but not overly so. It was–oh, she was worried about how I was now going to be a big target for people who wanted to use me, not worried about that whole ‘blowing up because I absorbed the wrong power’ idea. Which, yeah, that made sense. She undoubtedly knew how much people would be coming after me now better than I possibly could.
Because what I had really needed was a reason to be even more of a target.
After examining my eyes for a rather long moment, the woman produced a bit of charcoal. She rubbed some of it on my forehead, then over my cheeks. Then she produced what looked like a jar of glittery yellow paste, using her fingers to spread even more over my throat and face. Honestly, I was this close to deciding she was just screwing with me when I felt the warmth of a semi-active spell. She was doing… uh, something. Presumably to check on how this whole absorbing powers thing was going to go. I tried to stand as still as possible while she went back and forth between drawing on me with charcoal and paste, and consulting some sort of crystal she kept pulling out. The fact that she kept making ‘hmm’ sounds and biting her lip didn’t exactly make me feel completely confident either.
Finally, she excused herself to step out of the room. Apparently she needed to consult with Grandfather and get as much of a diagnosis from him that he could give without actually looking at me. And again, I was so very tempted to just tell them to risk it and let him see me in person. If he wasn’t able to figure out enough just from the data she was collecting and giving him, I probably would.
Percy tried her best to make me calm down, with some help from Cerberus and Eurso. Even Jaq and Gus came out and perched on either of my shoulders to rub my neck and make reassuring chittering sounds. Which meant I needed to introduce them properly to Eurso. That helped take my mind off things too, especially when they started running up and down his back and sliding down his horn. Eurso seemed to like that a lot, playing with Jaq and Gus in a corner of the room. Which mostly meant he functioned as a playground for them to run all the way up his tail, along his body, and then down again. It was fun to watch them like that.
Meanwhile, Laein was playing with the controls. She had zoomed in on the view of a room here on this floor, declaring it to be hers. With some trial and error, she made it the right size, and added a bed, desk, table, and more simply by essentially drawing what she wanted with one finger and adjusting the actual object once it appeared. It was actually really cool, though I probably would have enjoyed it more if I wasn’t busy freaking out about this whole thing.
Finally, the door slid open once more as Bastet came back in. Her gaze met mine and she exhaled before holding up both hands. “Okay, first of all, you’re definitely not about to explode, or any other thing you were worried about. Everything’s in the right place and you’re set up to absorb the powers and memories properly.” A very slight smile played at her lips. “Actually, you’re set up better than basically anyone else in the universe for that.”
Blinking uncertainly, I asked, “Uh, what’s that supposed to mean?” A quick glance toward the others showed I wasn’t alone in being confused. Even Eurso was tilting his head sideways while staring that way with a frankly adorably blank expression. Jaq and Gus were on his back, both of them staring that way as well. Altogether, it was enough to make me giggle despite myself before remembering what was going on as I snapped my gaze back to Bastet.
Sobering from her own smirk, the woman explained what she wanted me to do, the suggestion that Grandfather had worked up for how this whole thing was supposed to work and why I had those funny almost-burp/ears needing to pop feelings. And honestly, even after she explained it, I still felt like she was messing with me a little bit.
Except no, it did make sense. Well, at least as much sense as any of this made.
So, while the others watched, I closed my eyes and focused. I meditated for a minute, summoning one of my other selves. Locke, specifically, since she was the last one I had spoken to.
“Whoa,” my voice said aloud, before I felt her correct herself and direct her comments inwardly. So is this actually for real?
I guess we’re about to find out. Here, uh, let’s switch. I guess you just sort of… take over.
It was a bit like letting myself slide out of the driver’s seat so Tabbris could control me, only a little more. I felt Locke move to the front of our mind, while I faded back a bit. When my head looked around, it was because she wanted it to. She lifted our hand, examined the fingers, then looked up. “Hey, it’s me. Another me, I mean. Another us. Call me Locke.”
Eurso and the others came forward to sniff her, while I focused on the next part of what Bastet had explained. Namely, shifting that feeling in my stomach over to her. Metaphorically-speaking, of course. We had the same stomach. But I sort of mentally pushed that feeling over to her.
It was the Peridle’s regeneration. Which we tested immediately by having Percy gently cut our arm with a little pocket blade. After a few seconds, it healed. Slower than it would have with my own regeneration (and she cut us easier than she would have been able to otherwise), but still. At the same time, the distance I could sense with my item detection power had shrunk. But it wasn’t gone entirely, just like my own regeneration and enhanced durability weren’t gone. They were halved.
That was how this Ankou-absorption thing was going to work. I’d felt strange because I needed to direct that power I’d just absorbed somewhere. Either by accepting it into my own set of powers, or pushing it to one of my other selves. And I couldn’t ‘hold’ every possible power at the same time. My body just wasn’t built for that. It was like… it was like each of my other selves could hold a certain amount of powers. Not only ones I absorbed from now on, but the ones I already had too. I could shuffle them around and give them to any of my other selves. Those powers couldn’t be directly accessed by me. But when I focused on the version of me that had them, I could put them in the driver’s seat. Our body would shift to having the powers they controlled.
Basically, we could have two minds present in the body at the same time, my own mind and one of my other selves. Whoever was in the front seat would have their full set of powers, and whoever was in the back seat would have about half or quarter-strength powers, depending on what they were, exactly.
So, I could give one of my other selves all the major strength-related powers I managed to pick up and whenever I called them out, our body would be phenomenally strong. Or I could pull them into the ‘back seat’ of my mind and have access to a reduced amount of their power. But again, each of my other selves could only ‘hold’ a limited amount of powers. Even less than I could by myself. Bastet’s guess was that each other self could hold about six separate power types at once. I could have one self that focused on brute strength, another one that took on different elemental gifts, a third that dealt with seeing and tracking things, and so on. Any time I wanted to switch which of my other selves and thus other power sets I had immediate access to, it would take a couple minutes of meditation. So I couldn’t just switch on the fly in the middle of a fight. I may have been able to absorb every power from everything I killed, but I wouldn’t have access to all of it at the same time. I could also take the time to shuffle all the powers around and give them to different versions of me, but that wasn’t an instant process either. It took focused time and meditation to change which powers went where. But as far as the switching who was in control and thus which powers we had access to, I supposed it was a lot like Denny and the Carnival. Which… huh, add them onto the list of people I needed to talk to.
Yeah, it was complicated. And all that went for memories and skills as well. I couldn’t have access to all of it at once. When I absorbed the thoughts from people I killed, they would have to be given to one of my other selves to hold onto.
Processing all that while Locke was enthusiastically scratching the back of Eurso’s neck and down under his chin, I brought myself to one inescapable conclusion. Boy was I–
You mean ‘were we.’
Right, sorry, Locke. Boy were we going to have a lot to explain to our family and friends when we got back to the present.