8348/The Secret Life Of Jack Drake: The Iron-Bound Book of Skelos

The Secret Life Of Jack Drake: The Iron-Bound Book of Skelos
Date of Scene:	20 October 2021
Location:	Jack Drake's hidden trophy room, ruins of Drake House
Synopsis:	...Things get worse.
Cast of Characters:	Lonnie Machin, Tim Drake, Jonathan Sims, Zatanna Zatara
Cast of NPCs:	Alfred Pennyworth

---

Lonnie Machin has posed:
    Previously, Zatanna had arrived to examine the mysterious book kept under lock and key by Tim Drake's late father, Jack - and sealed away by him too, in a basement room closed off by a concrete wall.
    Having determined the provenance of the book - and that some quality of the tome reacted violently to Zatanna's ancient Atlantean heritage, a different consult was called in.
    The book remains where Tim left it - locked in the cabinet on his property, behind a demolition barricade and locked gate, watched by the security systems Tim has installed himself. Curiously enough, any attempt to photograph the book or view it digitally fails. Digital images become corrupted, cameras fail to function, old-fashioned film photography produces nonsense.
    And the skull-faced lock on the book merely grins.

Tim Drake has posed:
    Magic is, by and large, far beyond the purview of Tim's usual skillset. If he had the time, he could certainly dive through mystical tomes and every weird forum on the dark web that makes claims about supernatural events and come to some basic understanding. But he'll never have a gift for it. And he also doesn't have the time. Tim barely has time to sleep.

    This is why he has a caffeine addiction.

    So, he outsources. He has connections. And not all of them are through Batman! Zatanna will probably always be the first person he contacts, given what he knows of her standing in the magical community. But she, ah... well, last time was not so good. Right now Phoebe is benched both for Outsiders duties and magical girl duties, so she's right out. But thanks to a late-night exchange of contact info, Tim now has Thoth Dad on speed dial.

    So, that's who he calls, and asks for a consult, which includes an address and directions to the partially leveled Drake estate. The gates are open, and Tim is sitting on the hood of his car, boots on the bumper as he balances a laptop on his knees. He's in his usual getup, which is an oversized hoodie (today it's red!) and jeans, which makes him look like a grungy college kid who definitely should not be using a 4 million dollar car as a chair.

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Jon should probably /not/ be out all the way in Gotham without any kind of other protections, but he owes Tim Drake for saving his life a few days ago, and... honestly he's curious. Besides, who's going to be looking for him in Gotham of all places? Anyone who knows anything about his habits knows Jon Sims avoids Gotham.

    So he arrives by cab, and walks up the drive with his hands in the pockets of his jeans; he's wearing a /brown/ sweater today, because he's sweater-and-cardigan guy. As he approaches Tim he waves and calls, "So where's this rude book? I didn't know books could be rude, but I suppose if we're going to find one anywhere it'd be Gotham."

Tim Drake has posed:
    The Drake estate isn't the kind of expansive location that, say, the Wayne estate is. The Drakes have a long and storied history with Gotham but they certainly weren't *that* level of rich.

    Is anyone but Bruce Wayne that level of rich?

    It's mostly trees and construction equipment at this point, anyway. And Tim's ridiculously expensive car sat in the middle of the dirt and the dust. He seems to be expecting Jon's arrival--thanks to the aforementioned security system that keeps an eye on the grounds--so he's already put his laptop away and stood up, hands tucked into the pockets of his jacket, as he waits.

    "It's in the safe still. I've opened it twice, once by myself, and then once with Zatanna, but I haven't touched it or interacted with it otherwise." Then he adds, "Thanks for coming." Tim tips his head towards the remains of the manor and leads Jon into the thick of it, towards where the previously hidden basement room had been excavated and unsealed.

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Jon follows along into the manor, looking around curiously. Whatever levels of rich the Drakes or Waynes might be, he's from /England/ they have /castles/ and people regularly go to visit them, so the idea of traipsing through someone's ancestral home isn't /new/. You're just usually not doing it with the scion of the house leading you through the remnants of his childhood memories.

    The previously hidden room gets raised eyebrows. "Well, that's..." A pause. "Did Zatanna check for..." And then he takes a moment to press open that /very/ new Sight of his to peer at the doorway. "Huh," he says. "No obvious magical wards."

Tim Drake has posed:
    Tim doesn't seem particularly concerned as he moves the blockade out of the way of the opening that has been dug through the concrete that had previously closed up the room. He looks back, already having stepped through. "Wards?" he asks, and then he turns on his heel to look around at the room's contents. Tribal masks, statues, fossils, if it should belong in a museum, it's probably represented in his father's hidden trophy room. "Uh... well, the foreman and I walked in after we first opened it up without any issue. And so did Zee."

    He walks further in and then moves aside so that Jon can join him, before he points towards the safe in the corner. It's about his height. "The book is in there," he says, though he doesn't immediately go over to open it. Instead, he looks over at Thoth Dad, his shoulders hunched up. "It started screaming when she poked at it."

Lonnie Machin has posed:
    What Jon sees is years of occult artifacts, the product of Jack Drake's work before the birth of his son. A leering shamanic mask from a Pre-Columbian culture on the wall stares down, swords glint with long-neglected enchantments, script crawls across a cuneiform tablet. There was more than the Book locked away in here.
    And yet it draws the magically trained eye, exerting its own sort of gravity, even locked within the safe. Something old - something evil.

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    "Wards can be to keep things /in/ as much as keep people /out/," Jon notes. He turns around in a circle, looking at the whole room with a slight frown. "These should be returned to their people," he murmurs softly. It's the modern version of 'this belongs in a museum.'

    Then he shakes himself and turns to focus on the safe, frowning at it. "Screaming books," he mutters to himself. "Lovely." He takes a step toward it, almost involuntarily. Then another. Then /stops/, firmly. Clears his throat.

    "Let's go ahead and open it," Jon says, his voice a /tad/ higher-pitched. "Perhaps I can... make something of it all."

Tim Drake has posed:
    "That's what I thought he did with his finds," Tim says as his eyes move from one artifact to the next, despite having already examined them all. Committed them to memory too. He shakes his head. "It's why I never questioned the lack of them in the house when I was growing up. 'He donated everything to museums and cultural centers.'"

    There's something sharp and unhappy in the way Tim says that, his father's deception still raw on his nerves. But then Tim's expression smooths over in a way that is obviously trained, and then there's nothing. He crosses the final distance to the safe and crouches down in front of it long enough to enter an 8-digit passcode that is clearly well-known to him, judging by how quickly he types it in, and then he steps to the side as he pulls the door open.

    There, inside, is the book.

Lonnie Machin has posed:
    It is unchanged from when Tim saw it last. Bound in blue-black iron and black leather made from human skin, and set without by a skull-faced lock made of the same blued iron with no visible keyhole, set without by eight chains. Three feet by three feet, the massive tome sits in the dark, as if waiting to be exposed to the light once again.

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Jon's own training is primed to recognize those things--the little variations in tone, the brief expression and then the smoothing over. So he quirks a brow as he glances at Tim. But then he tucks it away in a box marked 'stop trying to psychoanalyze your potential friends' in his head and focuses on the safe and the book inside.

    He steps forward and looks down at the book. Swallows. Reaches out his right hand and stops, not touching the thing. "Do you know /anything/ about this?" he whispers.

    Unless it's going to require a touch, though, this is about the time the Archivist would start pulling information off the thing.

Tim Drake has posed:
    "I mean... that's definitely human leather, right?" Tim asks. "Zee gave me a funny look when I brought it up, but you can't tell me something as foreboding as that thing is wouldn't be bound in human skin. Right?" He puts his hands into the front pocket pouch of his hoodie, and then shakes his head in answer to Jon's question.

    His gaze doesn't linger on the tome, but he's also not particularly terrified of it, either. It's mostly just uncertainty in the set of his jaw and the faint narrowing of his eyes. Okay, and maybe a bit of unease too, like he's expecting the thing to just start screaming again. "Zatanna mostly just said that it's... very old. She mentioned the Shamla Pass, and something called Yag-kosha." He pauses, attention drifting as he stares into the middle distance, remembering. "She said there's a soul protecting the book, and that it was demon-ridden." Those are the Cliffs Notes of the discussion, at least.

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    "Right. Well. The way my power seems to work... if there's information on it in the Archive somewhere, the... collected memories of my ancestors and the Stories they've collected, it /might/ surface. If not..." Jon eyes the book. "If not, well, I can usually pull /something/ off of an item. I was able to bring forward the memories of more than one dead man. So..."

    The Archivist goes ahead and reaches out both hands to pick up the book.

Lonnie Machin has posed:
    Homo Sapiens is not the only race of Men that has ever been. Not the first, to be certain.
    The First Men were from a more primeval age, and from that age they hewed knowledge - ancient secrets, and ancient wisdom. And in the possession of that wisdom they grew selfish, and claimed more than wat their lot. They sought immortality, but what cannot die is no longer truly alive.
    They wrote their secrets down in iron-bound books, and even after they vanished into the darkness - destroyed? Died? Merely waiting? Greedy and covetous men quested and murdered and stole for their secrets.
    In Jon's memories, one young man murders his beloved brother just for a chance to read from the book for an hour. In China, a faithless magistrate manipulates his city into being sacked by the Mongol horde so that he can steal the book and run. When the Mongols catch him, Subutai's Tengrist shaman, a wise man, advises his general to throw the damned book into the deepest mine shaft he can find and then seal the whole thing up. But it never *stays* buried, this Iron-Bound Book of Skelos. It rises to the surface like black oil... or scum.

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    It all spills out of the Archivist as it comes to him, because that's how the power works: he monologues. So Tim, at least, will hear it all as he stands there and Zatanna if she's walking into the room, Jon having gone off without her like a /fool/.

    All the words, just as noted, in a half-strangled tone, starting with "Homo Sapiens is not the only race of Men..."

    He just... stands there, holding the book, eyes wide, pouring it all out in that sonorous voice meant for striding the boards rather than the psychiatrist's office he keeps it in, until "...It rises to the surface like black oil... or scum."

    And then the Archivist stares down at the book and says, "It's older than we are. Older than the Archive. No Archivist has ever directly touched it. I..." He hesitates, and then goes to try to prod at the lock with his hand--though he /could/ potentially be stopped.

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
    Even magicians need powder room breaks. When Zee returns, she stands in the doorway aghast, strangling the expletive that rises in her throat on seeing Jon try to touch the demon-ridden lock.

    "NO," she bellows like Jon is a child about to cross the street in front of a truck.

    Getting control of her panic, she says more quietly, voice still on edge, "Didn't Tim tell you how powerful that is? I'm surprised it didn't grow teeth and take a finger off or worse."

Tim Drake has posed:
    As Jon starts to monologue, Tim takes a step back and folds his arms over his chest. As it goes on, his eyebrows begin to inch their way upwards towards his hairline, and his weight shifts from one foot to the other. It almost looks like he's about to take off sprinting, all coiled momentum held tightly under reserve.

    And it's probably a good thing, because he's primed to move just as Zatanna reappears. Her shout prompts Tim to do so, and he darts forward like a fencer, crossing an impressive amount of space before he wraps his hand around Jon's wrist and yanks it back, away from the lock.

    "I told him what you said!" Tim replies, and he's holding Jon's hand up in the air like they're in grade school and Tim is making Jon volunteer to answer the question. "About the demon! And the--that it's really old!" He's not as tall as Jon is which means he's kind of standing up on his toes to maintain the no-touchy hold.

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    "How are we ever going to know what it /does/ if we don't--" The Archivist sounds /frustrated/, and struggles with Tim a bit. Just a bit.

    Then Jon manages to get control of himself and stops struggling at least. "Good /lord/," he says. "This thing is... this thing is..." He looks around at Zatanna, a little wildly. "Did you hear all of that? Men have started wars to read this book." And there's a part of him that really, /really/ wants to try to fight off Tim Drake and do just that, and it's entirely Jon's own burgeoning fondness for the young man that's holding that off.

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
After a deep restorative breath, Zee fixes Jon with an expression that is the mother of all kindergarten teachers calling a student down, "It wants you to do that. I got a lot more from it when I didn't read its intent and got knocked on my ass. It /wants/ to start wars."

    Her expression lightens, I had no idea why though as I say this, I had an inkling of an idea."

"Tim," she says more gently than the situation warrants, "Back him off and let him go, please."

    When she is satisfied they are out of imminent danger, she nods, "Unlocking the book might not be what we want to do. An entity has been locked up protecting it for a long damned time. Think how crazy it might be if we released it, one. Two, it just occurred to me that the book is a portal for something. It is not only spells rumored to be worth murdering for but a door for whatever gets off on violence, death and torture, not necessarily in that order.

Tim Drake has posed:
    Tim has a shockingly strong grip for a billionaire trust fund kid. It's not quite bruising, but he does squeeze Jon's wrist in a way that very clearly communicates (threatens?) that it could turn bruising should it need to. Though that is mostly motivated by panic.

    There's not much beyond magic--the unknown--that could prompt Tim to look that wide-eyed and frazzled. "Oh. Uh." Carefully he lowers Jon's hand, and then... ducks his head down as he backs away, looking very much the picture of awkward right now. "Sorry."

    Back into his pockets go his hands, and he rocks on his heels for a moment or two, looking back and forth between Jon and Zatanna as the two magic-users give their perspectives. "So, uh, how did my father end up with it?" he eventually cuts in to ask.

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Jon swallows, staring down at the book he's still holding in one hand. Once Tim lets go he will firmly place the other hand on the book, evidently not squeamish about maybe touching dead human flesh. There, now he can't just poke at the lock without anyone noticing.

    "Thank you," he says to Tim. /Thank/ you? For almost bruising his wrist?

    "No," he says reasonably, "we do /not/ want to unlock the book. Even the /Archive/ doesn't want to unlock the book because I'm /certain/ what's in here isn't actually conducive to whatever the general plans my gods have are." He grinds his teeth, just a little. "That doesn't get rid of the /curiousity./"

    After a moment, then, "How your father came by it /is/ the question. And also, what to... /do/ with it." He sighs heavily. "No solution is permanent, with this thing. I suspect we could fire it into the sun and it would just... re-form somewhere, if I'm understanding correctly."

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
    "Sadly, I think you are right." She is staring at Jon with an odd mixture of admiration and aversion. If she were to touch the book, the script inside it would try to crawl up her arm like a serpent, and would hurt like scorpion venom. The lock would defend itself as it already showed that it can do.

    Interesting conundrum. "Tim have you tried to touch it? I just had another idea which may or may not work - tantamount to throwing it into the sun, could we convince a god to take it into its care?"

Lonnie Machin has posed:
    The book holds its secrets for now, and merely grins. You'd swear the damn thing looks smug. Since it purports to contain all the secrets of Necromancy, including how to cheat death of its due, maybe 'smug' is the right word for it. Maybe.
    ...Just a peek? Come on. The book is over 50 millenia old. Who knows what secrets of the truly ancient world are contained in those pages. ...Right, Timothy?
    The idea that this book could bring back your deceased parents - what nonsense.

Tim Drake has posed:
    Tim stares down the book in Jon's arms with something akin to Batman's scowl. Probably as close as he's ever come to it, either in costume or out. His jaw is tight, and the blue of his eyes is crystalline, like ice. Then he blinks once and turns away, to look up at Zatanna instead.

    "I... no, I haven't." Everything Jon is saying only makes Tim's expression smooth over until it's completely unreadable. He swallows once, and then exhales. "I don't--." The front of his hoodie, the kangaroo pocket where he has his hands, moves slightly. Like he's forming his hands into fists. Before one is withdrawn so that he can reach out, across the distance between himself and Jon, to touch the book on its spine.

Lonnie Machin has posed:
    A woman clears her throat, audibly. Middle-aged - about the age Tim's father would be, she's dressed neatly, in a charcoal-gray business suit, and sunglasses. "I notice," She says, her accent carefully, cultivatedly neutral, "There's a lot of standing around down here." She looks around, and says, "I never thought I'd see this place again."
    Then she raises her eyebrows and looks directly at Tim. "Good God, you look so much like Jack did. For a second, I thought he'd found the fountain of youth."

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Jon swallows and then holds out the book, gently, for Tim to go ahead and touch. At the clearing of the woman's throat he looks up and frowns slightly, then bites back the comment that rises to mind. He has no idea who she is, no point in insulting someone's family.

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
    Zatanna turns, uncrossing her arms to look at the woman with an interrogative rise of her eyebrows. "Hello. He does rather look like his father, doesn't he? Who do we have the pleasure of meeting?" her tone polite and without challenge on the surface.

Tim Drake has posed:
    As if confronted with the Medusa, Tim goes stock-still, hand hovering in the air without quite making contact with the book as an unfamiliar voice echoes through the room. He doesn't so much as twitch for a long moment, before he pulls away and swivels his head to look at the woman. "Given how much I'm estimating these artifacts to be worth, I don't think it's particularly wise to sit on any of them," he tells her, deadpan.

    The comment about his appearance, or rather his father's appearance that he resembles, makes Tim's hands twitch at his sides. "This is private property. Do I know you?" His tone isn't outwarldy hostile but it is reserved, moreso than he usually is, no doubt due to being caught so flat-footed by... well, all of this.

Lonnie Machin has posed:
    "No." The woman says, "You don't. I was a friend of your father's." She pushes her sunglasses down and looks around the room, "And I hadn't talked to him since he married your mother. Oh, Jack." She steps inside. "Jack, Jack, Jack... you just buried it, huh? All our work."
    She looks over at Tim. "You look surprised. You really didn't know anything about your father? You never once asked him about his life?" She gives a little bit of a smirk. "My name is Sophia Crowne. And I was Jack's partner. This... is the sum total of our work together. Up until he met your mother." She pushes her sunglasses back up.

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Jon /firmly/ turns to put the book back in the safe and then stands in front of said safe, putting himself between the book and the woman before turning to regard her impassively, arms folded across his chest. He may not know Tim all that well as of yet, but he's definitely on the younger man's side if there are sides to be taken.

    "And where," he bites out in clipped, stiffly formal 'posh Englishman' tones, "did you get a /demon haunted/ book that is older than the human race?" There's a barely-held anger in his voice.

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
    Zee stands shoulder to shoulder with Jon, closing the woman's line of sight to the safe. Eyes narrowed, mouth fixed into a grim line, the magician broadcasts her resentment for the woman's manner with Tim and its implications. One hand balls into a fist by her side as she resists casting a toad spell on her. Jon asks the question that was upper most in her mind.

Tim Drake has posed:
    Something smooths over Tim's expression then, like he's pulled on a mask. The mask is, of course, Tim Wayne, billionaire heir. Most of the hostility has left his posture, though there's still a little bit of tension left, if you really look. Tim tucks his hands back into his pockets. "Not of *the* Crownes, I take it," he says with a raised brow. He gives her a once-over, only partially subtle in that way rich folk do, because they want you to know they're judging you.

    Because if someone is going to try and make him uncomfortable in his own h--on his own property--then Tim is willing to return in kind. "My father and I spoke about his work, naturally," he says with an aristocratic roll to the last word. "Strange, though, he never mentioned you." Tim moves forward, putting himself in front of Zatanna and Jon, almost protectively. "What are you doing here?" he asks.

Lonnie Machin has posed:
    "China, out of the mine shaft where Genghis Khan's general Subutai had it buried." Ms. Crowne says, as if it's no big thing at all. "Took us a year of work just to have a guess at the location of the book." She shrugs. "It WAS Sophia Cobb, but you know, impressions count."
    "Well, you know. Word gets out, word that you had the house bulldozed, word that you'd been visiting this place more than you have in years - and well-" She reaches into her pocket and takes out a key, "I figured you'd rather have the key to all these cabinets than have to break the locks." She walks over to a cebinet and unlocks it. "See?" Then she takes out a book and opens it, before she takes out a photo album and opens it, before she turns to a picture of herself, much younger, and Jack Drake - who does look uncannily like Tim - hanging off of a fearsome looking statue. It's titled 'Syria, prying gems out of a statue of Moloch'. "See? I'm not lying, Tim. But I think you are. You've got the same look your father would get, when he thought he was outsmarting somebody."

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    "Some things are better left buried," Jon says in a harsh tone. He's got the accent to play off the aristocratic thing Tim's doing, but it's actually middle-class Southern England, so he doesn't have the life experience to back it up. So instead it's harsh, and protective, and...

    And as much as he /likes/ Tim, he's an adult and can fight his own battles. So he remains otherwise quiet, just standing there glaring at the woman, listening, though he... /growls/ a little at the 'prying gems from a statue of Moloch.' This is /not/ the time for lectures about the wrongs of Western archaeology. It's /not/.

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
    Zatanna does not say aloud what she knows: the book summoned the witch. She has an instant and deep aversion to Sophia Crowne nee Cobb if for no other reason than implying Tim did not treat his father well.

    She doesn't hide the aversion well, as she says stiffly, "How kind of you to think of Tim. How is it that you possess these keys again?"

    She looks at the picture held up for them to admire,"Stealing national treasures somehow becomes you." Zee's temper is much too close to the surface which is unusual in the performer used to dealing with all manner of audiences.

Tim Drake has posed:
    Tim's "How convenient" in response to Sophia's excuses for her being here is especially droll. He might not have the mystical intuition that Zatanna has or the supernatural directory access that Jon has, but he is a naturally suspicious person. And this is setting off every alarm in his brain.

    Possibly why he's put himself between Zatanna and Jon. Though Zee has her spells and Jon his magic missiles, Tim has enough weaponry hidden on his body to be a threat of his own.

    Also he's got a damn good copy of Jason Todd's right hook.

    "What would I be lying about, exactly? That I have no idea who you are? That I wasn't aware of my father's preferences for illegally hoarding cultural artifacts?" His mouth twists, visibly unimpressed. "At the very least, these things should be in a museum, if not repatriated back to the cultures they were stolen from in the first place."

Lonnie Machin has posed:
    Sophia closes the album. "You really are so, so much like him. He hated his father, too." She puts the book back, and says, "And I know, you know I'm here for the book. Just like I know you won't let me take it. Just like I know who you are, Zatanna Zatara. I have to wonder, how DID Tim bring you in to consult on this?"
    Then she raises her eyebrows. "I also know something you don't. Into the west, unknown of man / Ships have sailed since the world began..."
    The eye-sockets of the lock on the book flare to life with a cerulean glow - and then the book emits the same hideous scream it did when Zatanna touched it, an agonizing, ear-splitting howl with a palpable, physical force to it.

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
    What Zee had expected becomes a reality. Gloating over Tim's relationship with his father costs Sophia time.

    Drawing herself up so that she appears to loom over the woman, the magician invokes the dislike coiled inside her like a lightning strike, "!su draW !tuo reh kconK !hctib eht ezeerF"

    Longer than her wont, the words are like a string of firecrackers bursting in the small room. "Freeze the bitch! Knock her out! Ward us!"

Tim Drake has posed:
    Tim almost, almost rises to the bait, there. Since he's in front of Zatanna and Jon, they'll both be able to see the way his shoulders straighten, pulling back, but then he just breathes through it and doesn't reply. Let her think what she wants about him and his dad. When Sophia's attention turns to Zatanna, though, the tension returns. "My father clearly made a choice to end his association with you, so you really have no right to any information about me or my life," he says.

    The screaming starts. Tim flinches but he's also moving through that reaction--his instinctual choice between fight, flight or freeze goes always to the first one--a twitch of his wrist has his staff, still collapsed, sliding out from within the sleeve of his hoodie, and he throws it with pinpoint accuracy at Sophia, like a dart, aimed at her throat.

    No magical know-how, no, but Tim at least understands from D&D rules that if a spell requires verbal components and you can't speak, then you're not going to cast it.

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Jon's reaction is foolish. It's stupid. It's... desperate.

    The Archivist turns and places his right hand on the screaming lock of the book. Even if they can't stop her, at least /he'll/ have the knowledge, right? Assuming it works that way. But there's that chance, that whatever this is meant to do, he'll wind up knowing how to stop it.

    Or maybe it's just a good excuse to try to open and read the book the way the Archivist so desperately wanted to, earlier.

Lonnie Machin has posed:
    The incantation is cut off as Zatanna's spell hits Sophia - and even though her powers are but minor compared to her opponent, she's not unprepared. The force of those spoken magicks slam into her ward, and there's a sound like a thousand firecrackers going off at once as they break - but then Tim's staff strikes her in the throat, making her collapse as she gasps for air, instinctively.
    At the same time, Jonathan touches the book, and the incantation Sophia began flashes into his mind.
    "Into the west, unknown of man,
    Ships have sailed since the world began.
    Read, if you dare, what Skelos wrote, in a dead hand words from ruined throat;
    And follow the ships through the wind-blown wrack--
    Follow the ships that come not back.
    Aie ya, Skelos yar!"
    ...Only when he snaps back to reality does he realize that as the words sounded in his head, he was saying them aloud. -Oops-
    The lock releases the chains with a sound like the clang of doom. The book slams open, and begins to flip through pages as if being riffled by a ghostly hand.

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
    Magic rises from the book in palatable waves.

    The first wave is like a thousand Africanized bees protecting their hive with a frenzy, stinging Zee from head to toe. She feels her eyes swell shut; worse, her throat begins to close. Before she can't utter another word, she manages, ".em dleihS"

    Zee then staggers to sit facing the woman she has downed with a spell. The magic beating at the shield she has erected while she desperately searches for a way to close the book. She tries for the obvious, barely able to whisper, ".koob eht esolC "

Tim Drake has posed:
    The way he throws the staff is practiced, the kind of reflex that comes only after that some repetitive motion has been done over and over and over again. Tim rocks back on his heels afterwards, turning, because he knows things are suddenly going very, very badly. How does he know?

    Well, Jon's voice echoing with the rest of the incantation that Sophia was just stopped from saying is a good sign. His peripheral vision is good enough that he can tell Zatanna is having a hell of a time herself, but Tim, fully out of his wheelhouse though he may be, knows what the real danger is, here.

    The book. Tim darts forward, possibly elbowing Jon hard in the side as he goes to clear a path, and he definitely didn't hear Zee's whispered spell to close it but Tim adds his own physical strength to her mystical might, because he tries to slam the thing back closed again.

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    The Archivist... stares down at the book. Jonathan Sims is /horrified/ by what he's done, but the /Archivist/ is going to absorb this knowledge if at all possible, staring down at it, that perfect memory etching every line as fast as that ghostly hand moves. It doesn't need to move slow enough for him to comprehend; he can go back and do that later. It's all going into his mind, so it will be in the Archive.

    For whatever horrific fate /that/ means for him and the world at large.

    And then Tim's there, jostling him, and he /fights back/ for a moment. He's not strong or trained or /anything/ so he's not going to win this, but it's certainly a window into whatever weird trance he goes into that despite knowing how terribly dangerous this is the Archivist will fight tooth and nail to keep on reading the thing.

Lonnie Machin has posed:
    The book was penned by a blood-sworn enemy of the Atlantean people, and hate for them is etched in every stitch of the letter, every character inked in human blood. Books like this have a will of their own and a purpose to vomit out evil into the world. It fights them. It fights them every inch of the way, pushing back against Zatanna's spell and fighting Tim physically. Inch by inch, the cover pushes toward the book closing.
    Sophia rasps, "Too late... too late! My life's work! Jack's life's work!" She staggers to her feet. "You only delayed the inevitable by being BORN, Timothy!"
    Meanwhile, Jon gets a view at some of the oldest blasphemies ever penned to paper, spells to tear down the barrier between life and death, spells to call the shades of the dead and bind them back into mortal husks, spells to breathe a shadow into meat-bodies and give them an endless craving for hot blood. Spells to defy death... but at a horrible, horrible cost. No good comes from this book, only a profound wickedness.
    As they struggle with the book, Sophia clutches her throat and then bites her bottom lip deeply, violently, and spits blood into her hand. Zatanna is not the only one who can make magick with words. She writes them on the ground.
    'Y'AI'NG'NGAH, SKELOS H'EE - L'GEB F'AI THRODOG UAAAH'
    Her magick calls to the book, compells it to her, and joins the book against the others in a contest of wills.

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
    doom        Doom!            DOOM!

    Magic fills the room like a tremendous bell clapping its metal tongue. Zee dizzy with the noise, struggles to stay conscious though her body's natural response is to flee from the pain it inflicts on her.

     Will power keeps her awake. And, her need to protect the Archivist as he wakes to his potential and is forced to drink the vilest magic that exists on this plane and to shield Tim who she simply loves as a nephew. What Jon experiences is tantamount to rape for someone who deals in the occult: it horrifies her.

Witch! She is not the only one who can deal in blood. Perhaps, Zatanna has another recourse but her immediate response is to pick up a shard of glass and to open her wrist. The cut wells blood with each heartbeat. No longer able to speak, she obliterates the spell with her own blood that carries the voice of the sea and Atlantis in it by wiping her open wrist across it.

Tim Drake has posed:
    Tim has nothing to defend himself against any of this. There's something to the saying 'blind as a Bat' when it comes to him and magic, and here he is anyway, trying to physical wrestle a dark magic tome. He's going to have a lot of ill feelings towards his father at the end of this, assuming they all survive. But none of that matters right now.

    Right now, Tim is just going to close this stupid book. Jon may try at first to fight back, and Tim must be aware of just how serious a violation of all things good and right in the metaphysical world that he doesn't even hesitate. His leg snaps out, aiming at the Archivist's solar plexus in an attempt to both knock him away and knock the air out of him. Physical distance and lack of speaking ability all rolled into one move.

    And then after that, Tim braces half his body against the safe, which is no doubt heavy enough (and-or bolted into the floor) to support him as he tries to throw himself down like a living, breathing paperweight on top of the book to close it.

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Jonathan Sims wants to cry. He wants to scream. There are terrible things in the Archive, but nothing like /this/--or if there is anything this truly /horrific/ it's locked away behind wards that he doesn't know exist. So even if it's somewhere in his head... /he's/ the one that has to absorb that knowledge, /he's/ the one that has to have it burned into his memory, has to live with the awful fact that he's now going to pass it down to his successors. That something so vile has tainted the Archive, on his watch.

    Of course, he wasn't supposed to be the Archivist. He's not /trained/ for this.

    But then... but then Tim kicks him, /hard/, and it sends him flying back, missing the women on the floor and thudding into one of the walls of the room. It's enough to daze him for a moment, to render him briefly useless.

Lonnie Machin has posed:
    Now Sophia's hair is free, and whipping - there's blood running down her chin and dripping onto her shirt. She looks every inch a terrible, terrifying witch of old as Zatanna's magick wipes out her invocation. Once again, the struggle with the book tips their way - and then Sophia reaches inside of her suit-coat.
    Maybe it's a quirk of the trade that magicians don't carry guns, but this one does - the concealable pistol is small, snub-nosed, but in a pinch it'll do the job - she aims it at Tim and pulls the trigger. Her injuries and the struggle make her aim waver - toward an arm or a leg, rather than his chest or his head.
    I mean, that's one way to make up for being out-powered magickally - a concealed carry. Right? Eh, eh?

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
    NOT TIM!

    An inner voice wails in Zee's ears as the shot reverberates in the room as loud as the magic that was splitting her head not a moment before. Acting on the instinct of a wild cat, protecting her young, the magician pushes herself up onto her hands and knees, ignoring the glass that embeds itself in her palms, and scrambles toward the wild witch to grapple the gun out of her hand. She drops on her, recovering a semblance of the martial arts training she has had.

Tim Drake has posed:
    The thing about getting shot is that pop culture never really gets it right. Tim doesn't get thrown back by the impact of the bullet in his thigh because that's not how physics works, and the utter chaos that his father's secret trophy room has been thrown into is enough that the sound of gunfire is just more noise in the cacophony assaulting Tim's ears. It maybe says something that he's used to hearing gunshots.

    But the searing pain, the force of the bullet as it tears through his musculus sartorius and embeds in his adductor magnus, only barely avoiding his femoral artery by pure, dumb luck? Tim notices that.

    He's no longer able to support his weight on that leg, and unfortunately that was the leg he was supporting most of it on. So, Tim buckles, grip slipping from the book as he falls, though he's got the reflexes to get his hands up to catch himsef before he slams his face into the ground.

Lonnie Machin has posed:
    Which is when the book itself rises up and FLINGS itself forward, at Zatanna's back, as she's grappling the gun out of Sophia's hand. Three feet by three feet, a four hundred page plus manuscript bound in iron. It's almost as bad as being hit with a copy of A Dance with Dragons. That's a joke, it's actually much worse.
    It leaves Jon behind for the moment, with just the impression of the horrible things he's seen.

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
Hoist by her own petard. Zee is cold cocked by a /magic/ chain-wrapped book and drops unconscious Sophia, soaking them both in her freely bleeding wrist.

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Jon manages to come up out of the whole room spinning enough to see Tim falling and the women fighting over the gun and the book sailing across the room.

    There's only one thing he can do anything about.

    It's wobbly, but he scrambles his way over to Tim. "/Zatanna/!" he screams. "Leave it, leave her, Tim's been shot!"

    He moves to put pressure on the wound on Tim's leg, barely even aware that Zatanna's been hit. Both hands, both palms. "ZATANNA?!"

Lonnie Machin has posed:
    The book drops to the ground in front of Sophia, and flips itself open. Funny thing, through the haze of pain of his wound, Tim swears he can hear somebody laugh. It's a cackle that'd put the Joker's to *shame*, the laugh of a creature that loves what it does and what it does is *nasty*-
    Nye-hee-hee-hee-hee-he, heh-he-he-he-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA~
    Sophia looks up at the book through a bleary haze, and writes a glyph in blood - her blood, Zatanna's blood? Who knows. But the glyph vomits up a gout of green flame that absorbs her, and the thrice-damned book, leaving only an ashy smear on the ground beneath Zatanna, though the sorceress herself is - not harmed by the spell. By being tackled by the Book of Skelos, yes.

Tim Drake has posed:
    Tim's rattled, momentarily, from landing. It jarrs him, jarrs his new bullet wound, and also leaves a clear path for Zatanna to get sucker-punched by a flying book. Things took a hard left turn there at some point and Tim isn't even sure when specifically that was. When Sophia Whatever-Her-Real-Last-Name-Is started chanting? When she made her little appearance? ...When they dug up this room that his father had tried so hard to hide?

    Either way, it takes him a moment to recover. And the sudden screaming pain of Jon at his side, applying pressure to his wound? Well, that's about as close to a shot of adrenaline as Tim's gonna get here. Though he only lets out a ragged wheeze of pain and pushes himself up onto his elbows. "First aid kit," he's saying as he slaps his palm against Jon's chest. In it, his car keys. "Trunk. Go! Zee needs help!"

    And then Tim sits himself up and pushes the Archivist's hands out of the way so he can start applying pressure himself, before his eyes lift to settle on Zatanna's prone form.

    The witch that's just ran away with the book? A problem for later. Right now, triage.

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Jon blinks only briefly. Then his /actual/ training kicks in and he nods, grabs the keys, stands, /runs/ out to the car. The gibbering horror he's feeling can wait, people are in need of medical attention and as he keeps saying that's one of the few things around here he's qualified for.

    He'll open the trunk, grab the first aid kit, and sprint back. He's got long legs, at least.

    Then he's kneeling next to Zatanna, pulling out an anticoagulant spray and applying it to her wrist so she doesn't bleed out. "I'm not going to ask why you have a big enough medkit to survive a war," he says in a shaky voice to Tim. "Given all Gotham's gone through. But I have this feeling we're going to need to talk." He's... not quite babbling, but the talking keeps the terror at bay.

Tim Drake has posed:
    "If I don't bleed out, we can talk," Tim says, having somehow regained a sense of calm in the time it took Jon to run out to the car. He blinks over at the Archivist as he starts treating Zatanna, watching critically for a moment before he seems to acknowledge Jon knows what he's doing.

    Yes, indeed, why would a young man like Tim Wayne keep a fully stocked med kit equivalent to what an army medic takes onto the field in the trunk of his 4 million dollar car? That really begs a lot of questions. In the meantime, though, Tim gets himself into a seated position. "Give me the syringe of XStat." As he makes that request, he somehow goes even more pale than he's already turned from the loss of blood.

    Tim, in his infinite wisdom (and enough personal experience to have learned his lesson) keeps a bite-guard packaged with the innocuous looking needle-free syringe.

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
Zatanna dreams. She floats hundreds of feet below intense blue water returning to her ancestors under the sea. Something buffets her, interfering with her weightlessness. Some fish nearby talk to her.

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Jon pulls out the syringe package, tosses it over, and then actually checks Zatanna's pulse and breathing. He can ask why the hell Tim has XStat /later/. Right now he has to make sure his friend lives.

    "Oh /Christ/ she's anaphylactic," he breathes. Another scramble in the medkit and he pulls out an epi-pen. He /does/ know what he's doing: forms a fist around it, pulls off the safety cap, and plunges it into Zatanna's thigh. He holds it there for a few seconds, then removes it and puts the safety cap back on.

    "She's going to need a hospital. Or that clinic." Then he laughs, shakily. "Or... to wake up and heal herself on her own, I suppose!"

Tim Drake has posed:
    Tim manages to catch the Xstat packaging out of the air and he should really feel proud for having any kind of reflexes remaining at this point. "Someone's on the way," he says, which probably means he was on his phone while Jon was running out to the car.

    And that's all the conversation Tim manages because he's looking down the barrel of something even more painful than a gunshot, right now. He rips open the sterile packaging of the XStat, and even he is feeling enough apprehension that he hesitates. Which isn't good, because this is kind of a life-or-death situation here for himself.

    But then Tim blows out a noisy breath through his nose, shoves the mouth guard between his teeth, and with little fanfare stabs the syringe into his gunshot wound. His eyes squeeze shut and he lets out a weak whine behind the bite guard, but it isn't until he depresses the plunger that Tim out-and-out screams, muffled though it may be. His uninjured leg spasms against the floor jerkily and he slams himself back against the wall where he's slumped, each exhale accompanied by a weak noise, before he throws the applicator across the room viciously and spits out the mouth guard. "FFFFFFFFFfffffffffff---"

    It's a good think the Drakes and Waynes have been neighbors for many, many years, because Alfred is only a short drive away.

Lonnie Machin has posed:
    ...In the midst of Zatanna's dream, she rises slowly to the surface, and finds herself on a sun-dappled beach. There is a woman nearby, she's dressed in a white robe, and wearing a headdress shaped like... a hawk? An eagle? She smiles, and offers Zatanna a drink of cool water. "Grace sometimes wears a forbidding countenance, daughter of Lost Atlantis. Remember this, always."

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
    Zee accepts the water, discovering the depth of her thirst. It's not the first time she has spoken to a Goddess; her words slake a deep need in her.

     "Thank you," she says, and opens her eyes as she is no longer drowns on dry land, and the swelling in her throat subsides. The first thing she sees is Jon's worried face.

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    "Oh thank Isis," Jon breathes, and cannot help but lean down and kiss Zatanna on the forehead as she looks up at him. Then he turns back to the medkit to pull out what he'll need to treat the bee stings. It's an almost mechanical thing, he does it by rote. Not thinking. Don't think. Just... /don't think/ about what happened here. Not now. Not yet.

Tim Drake has posed:
    Outside, the remains of the Drake Estate's gravel drive crunches under the tires of an approaching Rolls Royce. A car door opens and then slams shut, and a set of crisp footsteps rapidly approach.

    At the entrance to the room, a grey haired gentleman in a stately suit arrives. Alfred Pennyworth quickly surveys the scene before he asks, voice concerned, "Master Timothy?"

    Because against the wall, Tim is slumped, his hands clutched together in his lap, eyes closed.

    Until a second or two later, when he blinks one open. "My heart rate is stable," he reports, because he has his fingers pressed against his wrist, that's what he's doing.

    Alfred clears his throat, takes one more assessing look at the scene, and then gets to work.