9156/Cunning Plans

Cunning Plans
Date of Scene:	18 December 2021
Location:	The Laughing Magician
Synopsis:	Lydia surprises Jon in the loft over the Laughing Magician, and they discuss angels, fate, and an idea for Lydia to channel negative energy into her ectoplasm, the better to fight angels.
Cast of Characters:	Jonathan Sims, Lydia Dietrich

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Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Jon can't sleep.

    He should be sleeping, he knows he should. They're probably going to try to exorcise Michael from Chas tomorrow. He's given John a flask of the archangel's blood, given him the name and rank of the being. They've discussed ideas for what to do about it once it's out.

    Everyone he's talked to thus far seems to agree that there will be more to come, after the exorcism, and that's why Jon can't sleep. Because every time he tries, he has visions of the armies of Heaven tracking him down. Sometimes just to kill him, sometimes to put him through the whole business Michael put his victims through. Litany of sins, nailing himself to a cross, punishment for said sins--the whole bit.

    It's... not been pleasant.

    So he came back down from trying to sleep on Chas' couch, seeking he knows not what. He knows alcohol won't really help him sleep, but maybe it'll settle the nightmares? Or maybe Phoebe stashed something in the first aid box, an antihistamine strong enough to act as a sedative and knock him out. Just long enough to /sleep/ before tomorrow. He's rummaging around in the box behind the bar, trying to be quiet as not to bother the people watching the angel this shift.

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
Lydia spent a lovely evening up in the Antarctic watching the Aurora Borealis under a moonless night with her girlfriend and best friend. She's tucked them into bed and is now off on her own for the rest of the night. So, she decides to come down to the Laughing Magician to see who's on watch, and maybe give them a good half hour break.

When she gets in the bar, she pauses to take in the scents. Jon's here. Good. She needed to talk to him anyway. She nods to the person who's keeping watch and makes her way up the stairs, following her nose and ears until she finds the man rummaging through the first aid box.

"Hurt yourself?" she asks, probably scaring the man half to death. She's normally utterly silent when she moves, better to surprise her prey with.

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Jon jumps, banging his head on the underside of the counter and yelping. His heart's hammering and he stares around at Lydia, wild-eyed, one hand dipping into his jacket before the flash of her particular aura in his vision makes him realize who it is.

    He pulls his hand out of the jacket and sighs. "Gods above and below, Lydia! I didn't even hear you coming up the stairs." He rubs at the bump on his head. "Well... /now/ I have. I was looking for something that might help me sleep."

    The nasty putrid aura is still there, coming from his messenger bag off on the couch, and there's the /faintest/ hint of... blood? No kind of blood Lydia's ever smelled, something crisp and spicy and pure. But just a trace, lingering in the air.

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
Lydia sucks her teeth, wincing in sympathy as Jon bumps his head. "Oh, god. I'm sorry. I'm.... kinda like that now. I forget how naturally stealthy I am." She steps up to the man and lays a worried hand on his shoulder, "Are you going to be okay? From the bump. You banged your head pretty hard."

The scent of that blood isn't lost on her. Her senses are keenly tuned to it, and it's very distracting. It smells so... /tasty/. "You aren't bleeding, are you?" She shakes her head answering her own question, "No. That's... it's not human."

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Jon blinks at her and then swallows. "You... can still /smell/ that? I gave the flask to John... /hours/ ago." He stares at Lydia a moment and then shakes his head.

    "I... /think/ I should be fine. No memory loss, no loss of consciousness, no blurry vision or balance problems or anything like that. I suppose you can keep an eye on me for a bit, make sure none of that surfaces." He frowns. "Mostly, I have a bump."

    He sighs and leans back down to fish an ice pack out of the first aid kit--under which, it turns out, is the medication he was looking for. Of course. He sighs and straightens again, puts the ice pack on his head. "What you're smelling is... ahh... angel blood." A statement that has... implications. A lot of implications.

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
Lydia taps her nose. "Vampire. Tuned to the scent of blood. I can tell if you've cut yourself shaving two days later. It's /really/ distracting when somebody around me is actively bleeding." She peers at Jon for a moment, "Well, your pupils aren't dilated if that means anything. I don't know," she chuckles, "I'm an English teacher, not a doctor."

When she learns of the scent's origins she pauses. "How did you get /angel blood/?" Her gaze shifts over to where it would be. "And why does it smell so /good/?" she asks, seeming to drift off into her own little world. "I wonder if..." She shakes her head and slaps her hand. "No! Bad vampire! You cannot drink the angel!"

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Jon laughs. "I... wouldn't recommend it. I, uhh..." He hesitates. Does he admit he tortured the angel before or after he tells her which one it is?

    He goes to sit back down on the couch, still holding the ice pack to his head. "So... the whole story. First off, I happened to have a therapy appointment with Lucifer Morningstar. Who turned out to be... /the/ Lucifer Morningstar." He sighs. "Because that's my luck, right? He, ahh, during the therapy session he... blessed? Cursed?" He still can't decide what to call that. "...He /changed/ a flask of the healing water I summon. So... bale water. Bane to angels."

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
"Probably a bad idea," Lydia admits. But so /tempting/. She walks over to the opposite wall facing Jon and leans against it as he talks. She nods, "You mentioned that. I can still smell it in your bag."

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Jon nods. "Right, right, yes, I... good lord, maybe I /am/ concussed?" He frowns and shakes his head. "Alright, so, right, I talked to Chas. Took his statement, which..." He sighs. "He was... scared. He'd died, in Egypt, and he wanted to protect Phoebe and Geraldine, so he... summoned something benevolent. And got the angel that we're dealing with. He didn't know it was killing until just before it took Cael, but he /couldn't/ tell us. He wanted to, but..."

    Jon shakes his head. "Anyway... then I talked to the angel. It... well. You were partly right? It's limited by Chas' form, but... it's been itching to re-start reality for a while now. It thinks things have been marred since almost the beginning. It wants to have less free will this time around."

    A pause. "It /is/ mad, Lydia. But... it's the imperfections in all of /humanity/ that drove it mad, not just Chas."

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
Lydia nods along as Jon speaks, her brows furrowing deeper as he goes on. "Chas died?" she asks, puzzled. "How did he come back? You don't just come back from the dead without sacrificing something."

By the time Jon is done she's scowling. "That makes sense," she says. "But if it's so gung ho about restarting reality, why hasn't it attempted it before? What was keeping it in check?"

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    "John cast a spell on him that... has given him some extra lives, as it were." Jon doesn't know how much Chas is okay with people knowing about the souls trapped in his body, so he doesn't say anything further on that subject.

    "As for what was keeping it in check... I /suspect/ rules? I... hmm. I have reason to believe it may have, ahh... overstepped what it /should/ do on a technicality."

    He sighs. "It's... it's Michael, Lydia. Michael the Archangel. He wasn't supposed to answer Chas' call--the spell wasn't /meant/ for him. But he answered, and I think it was part of a greater plan to... well. Do what he wants to do."

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
"Hunh," Lydia muses. "Lucky Chas."

She scowls, then. "Technicalities count. When your father is a lawyer you learn that real quick. Technicalities count." She shakes her head. "We'll have to trust that when we send it back to the host it'll be taken care of because-"

"/WHAT?/ /MICHAEL?/" Lydia gets all wild eyed. "You have /got/ to be fucking kidding me!" She starts to pace back and forth. "Michael! The right hand of God? He's... he's supposed to be a protector! Of Jews, specifically, but still! He shouldn't be smiting! He fucking saved Isaac from being sacrificed! /That/ Michael?"

She whirls around on Jon. "How long has he been like this, do you know? How could he go from the defender of Israel to holy /torturer/?"

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    "He did say that the tribes of Israel would go stand by his Father during all this," Jon says drolly. "So that much is true at least."

    He sighs, then. "Something... spoke through me. Neith, I think? Who is... bigger than I thought, evidently? And She, if it was Her... She was /furious/ that Michael was doing this. She said... 'That call was not for you /specifically/! How DARE you intervene! How dare you use this mortal to subvert your purpose! This is not what you are meant for, Guardian of the Gate! You are meant to be the /Pillar/, not to appoint yourself Architect!'"

    He shudders. "It... was /not/ pleasant, I will say that much."

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
Lydia stops pacing to look at Jon and nod. "Thank God for small favors, I guess," she says dryly. She worries her hands together, "It frightens me how easily you all channel gods, you know that? It makes me feel.... impotent."

She starts to resume her pacing. "I'd been thinking about that. About what could /I/ possibly do in the face of... " she waves a hand in the general area of where Michel is parked, "of all /this/, and I've come up with an idea. It's kind of insane, and kind of desperate, but we're living in a desperate time."

She pulls out a journal and starts flipping through the pages. "I was thinking about the binding circle that we made," she begins. "And how once you fed the anti-energy into it it would imbue the second circle and create a kind of harmonic feedback loop. What if you use that as a channel to allow somebody to control it?"

She finds the page she's looking for and holds it out for Jon to see. "Look, here," she says pointing at the bits of the circle as she speaks. "This would probably kill a living, breathing human being. But I neither breathe nor live so I think my body could handle it. Also a normal person would have to have something to channel it through, but I've got my ectoplasm, and it should act like a /wonderful/ conductor for this." She looks at Jon with a hopeful look. "Inscribe that on my back, shoot some of that void power into it and, for a while, I become an anti-angel weapon." She looks at her work. "It'll hurt like the dickens, and I'll be very /very/ thirsty afterwards, but it should work."

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    At 'impotent' Jon literally groans and puts his head back onto the back of the couch. "If one more person comes whinging at me about how 'powerless' they are in the face of angels I might /scream/." He looks to Lydia. "Not that... do you know that's /precisely/ what started all this? Chas felt like he wasn't powerful enough. He needed more power. Never mind that he knows more about this shit than I do, never mind that he can face danger 30 some-odd-times and die and be fine, never /mind/ that what his daughters /need/ is a shoulder and advice and a warm bed and good food."

    He shakes his head, and tears suddenly come to his eyes. "I have never, /ever/ felt smaller and less powerful than when I'm channeling the gods. I'm not a... a /person/ in that moment. I'm not /me/. I'm just a tool. An instrument. Like... like nothing I do matters, like I'm being danced on puppet strings to some fate I can barely discern. Everything's just lined up so neatly, you know? I get the bale water right when I need it, to harm the archangel and get its name, hand the blood over to John to do the ritual, probably piss it off enough to hurt me in some manner that'll give someone else the strength to defeat it..."

    He sighs. Closes his eyes, so tears leak out the corners. "Sorry, Lydia. It's... I'm sorry. It's not your fault. It's just... you're the /third/ person this week who's said that to me while I'm just... just... /terrified/. But you're not wrong to want a better way to fight this damn thing."

    He lifts his head to read the book, frowning slightly. Bites at his lip. "...That /could/ work, I think. It's... it's a /good/ idea. I'm sorry I... I'm sorry."

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
Lydia looks chagrined as Jon calls her out "I... I'm sorry. I know what it's like to feel like you're at the whim of fate, and how helpless that makes you feel." She takes in a breath, to let it out slowly as she sits down next to the man. "I think it was my fate to have become a vampire," she confesses. She looks over and gives him a wan smile. "I don't say that lightly. I'm a firm believer of free will and that we make our own path in this world but...." she shakes her head.

"Part of it is a circumstance of birth. I have the blood of Pharaohs in me," she says. "Hatshepsut, specifically. The genealogy between me and her is pretty much a straight line. There aren't many women born of her blood. I might as well be the last." She looks over at Jon and gives him a grin. "I know this because she found me. She's my sire."

She shakes her head, "She didn't want to turn me. That was never the plan. She wanted me to come into my power, grow old, have kids, continue the line." She chuckles, "She never said as much but I could tell. She's like my mother that way."

"Well. Her 'disappearance' and presumed death was her being turned by the Irappu to a vampire," she says, as she studies her fingernails. Somehow she never gets dirt underneath them anymore. "The plan was for her to turn her son, Thutmose III, into a vampire and then installing him as Pharaoh for eternity. Or somesuch. You know how these evil plots are."

"But, the light of Isis was strong in her, and she was able to resist the enslavement of the mind, that the Irappu do to their childer to keep them in line." She waves a hand, "She ended up killing a bunch of vampires and disappearing into the night. Ever since then the Irappu have been seeking vengeance on her."

"Which is where /I/ come in. Bhanavi, the leader of the Irappu and Hatshepsut's immortal enemy, thought it would be a coup to take her last living relative and turn her into the Irappu clan and have her forever serve darkness." She chuckles ruefully, "It didn't quite work out that way, I guess. I was kidnapped, and taken to their lair in Egypt. Hatshepsut, Mystique and Clarice came and rescued me. Bhanavi had already drained me of all my blood. If they had come any later, I would have been turned. If they had come any sooner I would have been outright killed. But they came /just in time/ and the only way to save me was to have Hatshepsut be the one to Embrace me."

"For a long time I've thought about this, about what could be done different to have saved me from that fate and you know what?" She looks over at Jon. "No matter how you slice it, no matter the paths I could have taken, one way or another it all lead to this."

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Jon listens raptly. It's not quite a statement, but he's curious nonetheless. So he listens, and when it's done he nods, filing that away. "Can we get some proof of that? Hatshepsut's fate has been a matter of debate for centuries." He smirks, clearly joking.

    Then he sighs. "I shouldn't be the Archivist, did I ever tell you that? My older cousin should have. Evidently something more powerful than Thoth stepped in, intervened in the normal line of succession, and... for some reason my grandmother was never informed." He sighs. "She trained Sasha instead of me, so here I am with not enough knowledge bumbling around like a fool, accidentally ending the universe and making mortal enemies of archangels." He shakes his head.

    "I... am beginning to suspect that whatever intervened is what spoke through me the other day. And it's... it's /so/ much better than I am. It's terrifying." He sighs and stares at the ceiling. "I don't know what She saw in me, as opposed to Sasha. She can't have seen this coming--She was surprised. So..." He shrugs. "I don't know. I really don't. I just... people keep acting like I'm... powerful, like I know what I'm doing, like I've no reason to be scared, but I..." He swallows.

    "I'm so, so scared," he says softly. "But I... I can't... let myself give into that. We have to deal with this. People are... depending on me, evidently." He laughs, shakes his head, like it's a preposterous idea.

    "Anyway..." He shifts a bit, setting the ice pack aside, and picks up the journal to look it over. "Let's see about this... channeling negative energy into your ectoplasm so you can battle the angels. Would that protect you from Holy Light, do you think?"

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
Lydia gives Jon a soft smile, and a comforting squeeze on the shoulder. "/I/ am beginning to suspect that nobody really knows what the hell they're doing and that we /all/ are just kind of making it up as we go along. The real trick is project confidence and people will believe you have everything under control."

She sighs, "It's all a sham anyways, isn't it? For /this/ to have happened, and for /us/ to be the ones to deal with it. It's frightening." She closes her eyes and gently bangs her head against the back of the wall. "Strength doesn't come from not being scared, Jon. It comes from pushing through the fear to do what needs to be done."

She lets that sit for a minute before nodding and pulling out her journal again. "If I use the void as armor, then any hit I take should just... get sucked into nothingness. Of course it isn't going to be /pure/ void. That would just suck /everything/ in. But void infused ectoplasm should be able to take quite a punch before it breaks." She shakes her head, "I don't think I'd be able to take down the likes of Michael with it, but it would give him pause, and us enough time to come up with something...." she shrugs helplessly, "Better."

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Jon sighs. "I know," he says softly. "I know." And he is--pushing through the fear. For now. Hopefully it doesn't overwhelm him.

    Then he listens to Lydia's idea, and nods. "It might also help if..." He sighs. "I'm worried. I mean... Michael's the leader of the armies of Heaven, right? And... we've angered him, quite a bit. So, one figures he might start the End of Days right here, with an invasion. I mean... I hope not. I really do. I hope John can just..." He makes a 'pfft' sound and waves both his hands out as if sweeping something away.

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
Lydia cocks her head curiously. "Help if what?" she asks, encouraging Jon to continue that thought. She's all ears on this one. Then she scowls. "An invasion? That's... this spell isn't going to be able to stop an army of angels."

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    "Well, no, but you'd be able to fight them, regardless. Or... it might help... I don't know! It's a good idea, is my point." Jon sighs. "Admittedly... it would be terrific if it /doesn't/ come to that. I mean, that's part of what Michael sees. The violence, the corruption...."

    He trails off and shakes his head. "It's worth doing. We need whatever advantage we can get. Would Michael's blood be of any help to the spell, do you think?" He smirks. "I /do/ have three liters of it in the Archive, now. All the feathers on a wing burning away leaves a /lot/ of blood."

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
"Three /liters?/" Lydia asks, aghast, never mind the voice in the back of her head telling her to guzzle it down. "You did /what/?" She looks pleadingly at the man, "Please don't tell me you /tortured/ an angel."

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    "I did," Jon says grimly. "I needed its name, and I had no other method of getting it--Michael refused three times, after all." He seems vaguely amused by that.

    He sighs. "That's what I mean when I say this is my /job/, Lydia. Angels are not... holy, to me, no more so than anything else. They are not beings to worship and hold up as examples of good behavior. They are dangerously unbalanced creatures of pure order and stricture that need to be kept in check lest they decide that, say, free will was a mistake and everything should be started over. That's why I /exist/. I'm not the only such check on them--I'm just one of the ones that's /here/ right now."

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
Lydia just looks sad. Not disappointed, or angry, or anything else, really. Just sad. "What kind of universe is it that forces a good man to go to such great lengths," she says. "I hate this," she concludes, getting to her feet. "I hate everything about this. I hate how it's hurting everyone that's involved. I hate that this very situation /by its very nature/ calls into question every belief I've ever had."

She pinches the bridge of her nose. "I.... I'm going to go home, curl up with my girlfriend as she sleeps and work out if I have the mental agility needed to keep my faith throughout this trial. Have a good night, Jon." She turns on her heel and stalks out into the night.