Chapter 4
Every species and every culture that knew magic had a style to their magic.
It was largely chalked up to differences in perceptions, the way that the Gods of their world, or the forces that led to magic's discovery viewed the multiverse.
Gods, after all, were mercurial and unique beings, forces of the fates themselves, and one of the few classes of beings that could defy their will and get away with it for at least a little while.
Like anywhere and anything, there were rules you didn't break and lines you didn't cross without incurring not just penalty but cold and calculated wrath.
Many a faith system had gone to its grave, depriving those Gods of worshipful attention and thus the power to project in those worlds because they played a short game, while the Fates always bet long.
The humans in this world had a pithy phrase for such occurrences...
The house always wins.
This was why Alaric was paying dutiful attention to his assignment, chanting all the while.
He liked chanting; it focused him and brought him back to simpler, mortal times when he was the bishop of a small diocese of churches dedicated to Lumos, God of Purity, in a reality adjacent to this one.
He had been remembered as a saint there before the Mad Prophet had arisen and wiped his deeds away, his elevation due to the meticulous nature of his accounting, exposing a swath of corruption that traced back to the corruption of a particular nightmare God.
They had loved him until the end and remembered his sacrifices. Such work had guaranteed the path that led him here because he had never... never pissed off Weaver Central or his former master Lumos.
In short, Alaric was a saint because he was a perfect middle manager, his spirit born and bred for the task.
Even now, he thrilled at pressing his underlings to work weekends.
It was just... great.
Yet for all those millennia of happy devotion, no matter the reality, working up the ranks, getting back to lofty positions with good vacation time that mirrored his mortal elevation to the bishopric, and gaining experience all the while, he still hadn't an inkling of what the hell the fates wanted him to do in this case.
Deus de lumine, Deus puritatis, arridere servo tuo," he chanted, letting the actions take his focus away from this fetid alley, in this disgusting low magic world, to the inner garden of his soul, allowing him to visualize the problem.
"One," he said within, making a mental checklist, "we're going to have to move the pieces to a great place of power. The district office would work; they have labs there and casting rooms."
“Deus de lumine, Deus puritatis, arridere servo tuo....”
"Two, I'll need a good spell, something to tie disparate souls together. That means creation magic... archaic creation magic," reaching out towards the eternal library, he felt his remote connection sync in as he sent the query...moments later, a complex magical diagram and sigil work popped into his mind.
"Ah, life seam... That sounds perfect," he said. His eyes opened to find Grimm still there, sitting up, his eyes closed in focus.
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A veil surrounded them. NYPD police were on the scene, taping things off, as forensics took pictures of the physical body of Willa and the ruined pipe, making sure to get the placards they had set down beside them in frame.
One walked through Alaric, but it was of little consequence.
It barely tickled.
"Good job holding the veil. Now brace, I'm about to move us," Before Grimm's ears could finish perking, reality warped and distorted around them and the pieces as a new room resolved around them.
"District offices," Grimm intoned, his voice low, as his tail quivered in worry.
"Do not panic. You've already been reassigned by Weaver Central, so you're no longer my problem. Be grateful that you will be spared my wrath because if it were up to me, you would have gotten a lousy performance review," Alaric sneered.
Taking out your anger on underlings was another aspect of what made him a great middle manager.
"With respect, Sir, what did I do wrong? I counseled Riley to not get involved, pressed the alarm button, and waited for support. I fail to see what I could have done differently," Grimm asked, not wanting to make enemies.
"That's not my problem. This mess happened on your watch. So, no matter how dutifully you carried out your orders, it obviously wasn't enough. I do not tolerate failure. Now, let me concentrate," Alaric reached out and cast the ancient magic he had cast once before as the threads of fate again became visible.
The pieces now were before Grimm and himself in what appeared to be a perfectly square empty room. Blue Crystal sconces set into the wall glowed with a bright clinical azure light that reflected off the seamless, white marble floor, ceiling, and walls, showing off how devoid of all detail this space was
It reminded Grimm some of the snowy times out on the vast plains that bordered his forest. Nothing but white in every direction, the world having lost all definition, which made what was there stand out all the more proudly.
Much like the glowing gold strands coming off of what remained of Riley and Willa in this case.
Alaric extended his index and middle finger on his right hand and drew it up level with his eyes as he recalled the sigil work and diagram from the Akashic Library. A seven-pointed, circled star flashed into existence in the perfect white marble of the floor at its center, followed by a pentacle that was then surrounded by a nine-pointed star, further filling the space. Completing the work, a circle surrounded, filled with ancient sigils that seemed to dance and move in a ritual moving clockwise.
Faintly, Grimm could hear music, sounding much like a choir as the song of creation echoed through the space.
Alaric let his right hand fall open, then held out his left as if making two ends of a box in front of his chest before splaying his fingers. The threads of the two incomplete beings flowed towards him for the first time, wrapping around his fingers as the archangel began to work and pull, weaving them together in complex magical geometry over the sacred sigil as the music pitched and faded.
Grimm's eyes widened in wonder as the pieces began to shimmer and glow before drawing together. A lagomorphic shape became visible, shining with light, as Alaric opened his eyes and let the spell complete.
A white tailed jack rabbit resolved out of the brilliant light, sleeping peacefully in the center of the circle.
"They look just like Riley," Grimm exclaimed.
Alaric flicked his hand and hit the hare with a powerful sleeping spell. "Well, they aren't; there are pieces of both the celestial and the mortal in such a way I've never seen in all my years. I wonder what the Fates could be up to?" He boggled, pondering his handiwork.
"But what does that mean?" Grimm pressed, feeling a bit more bold. After all, Alaric was no longer his supervisor.
"Above our pay grade. I've never encountered any being that was a mix of celestial and mortal like this. There are legends, of course, of wicked giants and world-ending monsters, but if that's a world-ending monster, I'll eat my halo," Alaric proclaimed, regarding this new creation with a dismissive air.
Grimm's ears perked in a moment of bemused joy. That would be a sight to see.
Something was strange, though. Reaching out to her in an act of magical instinct brought the perception of not just light but the darkest of shadow, existing only as a flicker, like a fleck of ash upon freshly fallen snow.
"Curious," Grimm thought, looking to Alaric before thinking better of asking any more questions.
They were, at least, part celestial; as much as they were mortal, the magical construct that the original Riley had been reforged out of was mostly intact and made up much of their being.
The wolf knew at that moment he was witnessing something that he'd never see again, no matter the eternity before him, synergy and serendipity meeting at a particular and unlikely crossroads.
"Ok, I've done my part. Pick a spot in the astral, drop in, and wait for their incarnation," The archangel ordered.
"I wasn't trained to be a guardian; who do I report to?" Grimm protested.
"Not my problem," Alaric sneered before vanishing, thrilled at the delegation. Efficiency, after all, was life.