James Hutchins (0roborus) wrote in birthrightrpg, @ 2020-12-12 20:55:00 |
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Entry tags: | flynn russo, james hutchins |
The Deep End
Who: James, Flynn
What: Conversations About the Dead & More
When: Present
Where: Curiosities, Las Vegas
Flynn had spent the majority of his life trying to block out the various visitors from ‘beyond’. He wasn’t entirely sure where the spirits and apparitions originated from, if they were from heaven, hell, or another dimension. For someone in close contact with such beings, he had no idea how any of it really worked.
He did remember James Hutchins from Searchlight mentioning that he ran an occult shop in Las Vegas called Curiosities, however, and that seemed as good a place as any to start. Flynn navigated his old but sturdy Challenger into the city, procuring a parking spot and walking the rest of the way to the shop.
Upon entering the store, the first thing he did was instinctively take a deep breath. The air was heavily scented and somehow comforting despite not being entirely familiar. And then he spotted James near a display and approached casually. “Hey, man,” he said, slipping his hands into his pockets. “Nice shop.”
James looked up from his crouch, his arms elbow-deep in a collection of smudging sprays that they carried because of recent demand, not because he thought they worked all that well. “Hey,” he said, surprise and warmth drawing the word out. “What are you doing up this way?” He righted a few bottles that had toppled over, carefully extracted himself, and stood up, sweeping the back of his hand across his forehead. It was restocking day in Curiosities, time to put out all the supplies they purchased or crafted in-house in time for December, which somehow yielded higher sales even though they weren’t Christians.
He knew Flynn from the truck stop. He was a frequent customer, with how often he drove back and forth between the auto shop and Curiosities. Flynn was the kind of guy it was easy to strike up a casual conversation with and not get caught up in bullshit about the weather.
Flynn decided not to beat around the bush. Since telling Marsh, Ellie, and Ronnie about his ‘secret’, it had become much easier to explain it and not feel like a liar or a freak. And he figured that since James ran a store like Curiosities, and was a resident of Searchlight, he would be quite familiar with the strange and unusual. “I kind of have this...I don’t know if power is the right word, but it’s the closest that I can think of,” he began, taking a step toward where the other man stood.
“I realized a while back that I can help people with it. So, I guess I’m looking for how to control it better. To focus it?”
James nodded, the momentary eyebrow lift subsiding into an expression of comprehension. “If I had a dime for every time someone said that…” He spotted a customer over Flynn’s shoulder, one juggling an armload of candles, incense, and dried herbs. He lowered his voice to mutter, “Let me get her checked out, then we can talk. You want to sit?” The magic user gestured at a couple of comfortable, green chairs. “You’re welcome to pace, too.”
He rescued a box of sandalwood and plumeria from the customer’s arms and took it to the counter. The young woman, Shannon, had been in a couple of weeks back when Izzy dropped by. A fledgling Wiccan, she was proving herself to be a lot more insatiable than her peers when it came to learning magic. James almost felt guilty cleaning her out; there couldn’t be much left of Shannon’s paycheck from waiting tables when she was done stocking up in Curiosities. Shannon gushed about Farrar’s handbook on the Sabbats while James rang her up. The girl gesticulated, her bird-like hands glinting with silver rings engraved with pentagrams. A crescent moon necklace hung from her neck, along with a delicate pendant full of herbs, which she had bought from Sam. She took her heavy paper bag out of the store and waved goodbye.
James turned up the ambient music -- Agalloch’s the Mantle -- the slightest notch, enough to mask their voices if anyone wandered in and felt like eavesdropping, and looked around for Flynn. “You still with me?”
“I’m still here,” Flynn answered from one of the green chairs. He got to his feet and approached James. There was something about being in Curiosities that was comforting and he felt secure divulging things to the other man. “So...I’m looking for anything on, I guess you would call it conjuring?” He glanced idly at some of the displays before turning back to James. “I can see ghosts, spirits, whatever phrase you like to call them. And I can talk to them.”
Taking a breath, he continued. “A week or so ago, this guy’s mother appeared to me. She wanted me to give him a message, which was new for me. And I did. It seemed to help him, and I realized I could probably do that for more people. Or like...solve murders and stuff.” Flynn shrugged.
“That’s a big leap.” Surprised, James brought a curled up fist into his open palm. “Not that you can’t do it. Just gotta find the right contact with the police. ‘Course… once you do that for one of them, you might as well hang a neon sign outside your door. For all we know, they talk. Come on.”
He hitched his head in the direction of the stairs, taking them at a modest pace while he thought about the supplies or reading materials that might help. “I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who could do this by themselves,” he said. “Most people have to use a lot of magic. Heavy magic. Is anybody else in your family tree like this?” The soles of his boots made the wooden floor creak as James headed for a bookshelf and started scanning the hardback spines.
Flynn rubbed the back of his neck as he followed James up the staircase. “Uh, not that I know of,” he responded. “My parents kept it a secret when they weren’t flat out trying to ‘fix’ me. Apparently, it isn’t smart to tell your dad that you can see and hear things that no one else can. He thought I was just over-imaginative at first, then flat out crazy when that excuse didn’t pan out.”
He looked around at the various books and supplies, and was glad that James was there to guide him because he had absolutely no idea where to start. “Have you ever tried to? Conjure someone, I mean.”
“Dead person? No.” James slipped a book from its place, scanned the contents, and put it back. “Thing? Yes.” He went around the back of a shelf and tried again. “Once they slip through the veil, what’s the difference between one consciousness and another?” He took out a black book with gold-embossed lettering, some of the shine gone since its publishing date. The word ‘necromancy’ was dull, as if someone had traced their fingers over it hundreds of times. The pages were thin as a Bible’s, but the words nowhere near the same meaning.
He handed it over. “I know you can talk to them, but if you read up on how other people do it, it might give you some ideas.” James started rearranging boxes on a shelf, looking for inspiration in the crude labels. “Do they come find you, or are they more like shadows around people or places?”
“A little bit of both,” Flynn answered immediately “At first, it was hard to tell them apart from living, breathing people, you know, if they didn’t have, like, massive head wounds or they weren’t covered in blood. Both of which I’ve seen before, by the way.”
Flynn looked down at the book James had given him. Necromancy. He had heard that term before, knew what it meant, but didn’t ever think that would apply to him. He didn’t have control over the dead. Could he? Should he? It was strange to think about. Looking back up at the other man, he continued.
“Some places are louder than others. I moved from Henderson to Searchlight, even though part of me really didn’t want to, but it felt like some...underlying driving force was having me sign the lease on my trailer, and had me applying for the job at the truck stop. It turns out some spots in Searchlight are deafening, which was surprising and yet not. All this weird shit happens there and people just look the other way. If I were a ghost, I would be pissed about that, too.”
“Unless you didn’t know you were dead,” James reasoned. “Hard to imagine that if there’s a massive head wound.” He picked out a guide to communicating with spirits and flipped through it, muttering, “This one’s about ways spirits communicate with people who aren’t gifted. Coins, chimes, photos, number sequences that keep showing up, electronic equipment, birds… That’s a big one.” He frowned. “But I think you’re past all this.” He leaned over and tossed it on the wooden table, the paperback book hitting the surface in a slide.
“How do you feel about meditation with an assist?” James looked Flynn in the eye. He might as well be direct about it. “If you want to go deeper, you might need to open your mind first. Really open it.” He pointed at some dried plants hanging from the ceiling. “Awake or asleep, it doesn’t matter. It might not work. Or it might work too well, and they’re showing up in your mirror when you brush your teeth.”
“I’ve never meditated before,” Flynn admitted, “but I’m willing to give it a try. I’m the type of person who uses external things to try to block out any unwanted visitors. Like loud music, beer, sports...other stuff.” He shrugged.
“But you seem knowledgeable, so I’m willing to trust the advice you give me.”
“Famous last words, Flynn. I’ll toss you in the deep end.” James slapped a guide to meditation and opening the third eye against Flynn’s chest. As he moved from place to place in the loft, he thought about the ghosts or other entities that might be tailing him. With people like Brianna and Flynn roaming around, he might want to look into how to sever spiritual ties, or at least try to throw a blanket over it. Otherwise he was advertising his issues to anybody looking.
With the shopping baskets stacked up downstairs, he turned a small, cardboard box upside down and emptied its contents so Flynn could use the box for storage. Soon, the cube contained a package of incense made of jasmine and tulasi. “Focus can start with meditation and making sure you’re open to what’s trying to communicate with you. Everything I’m putting in this box, you’re going to use. That guide’ll mention stones you can use when you meditate.” James went into another container, then sorted through a couple of stones in his palm and held them up, one by one. “These are the ones I’d go with. Blue quartz is for communication. Blue apatite, past life regression. Lapis lazuli connects the spiritual and physical realms. Hag stone prevents psychic attack. Don’t lose this one.” He put them in a net bag, twisted a knot in the top, and dropped it in the box. Then he reached up high for a tin and took out a plastic bag of a powdery, green substance harvested from the flesh of a local-grown cactus, a cousin of the San Pedro cactus that produced mescaline. “Take about a third of this and make it into tea or wash it down with water. Make sure you’re alone and you’ve got some time on your hands, unless you want people to know you’re hearing colors.”
It was slightly overwhelming, but Flynn nodded and tried to remember what he could. “Oh, I’ll definitely be alone,” he assured James with a crooked smile “I’m not about to pull this stuff out at the truck stop and start meditating near the jerky or anything.” He raised an eyebrow.
“Actually, a month or so ago, your employee Tal popped in, nearly caught me talking to ‘someone’, but I don’t think he noticed. Quiet guy. He could have seen but just didn’t want to bring it up.”
James tossed the books in with the baggie of definitely-not-FDA-regulated powder and frowned. “Tal?” He thought about it. “Yeah, Tal doesn’t say much. Unless it’s about mechanics. He knows I use magic, never seemed to have a problem with it. Doesn’t bring it up either.” He had a good relationship with his coworker and felt like they trusted each other. “When he first came to work with me, getting him to talk was like getting blood from a stone. Harder. Stones actually bleed under the right circumstances.”
He leaned against the table and folded his arms. “I wouldn’t say he’s like everybody else, though, pretending Searchlight’s a regular town. I get the feeling it just doesn’t bother him.”
Flynn nodded. That made sense. He and Tal had only ever really talked about cars. That was okay with him. He had spent a good portion of his life keeping things close to the vest, anyway. It was only recently that he had begun opening up to people.
“What about you?” he asked James. “What do you think of Searchlight?”
James stretched his neck and gave the question some consideration. “I think it’s meant for something,” he concluded. “People like us are either there to make that thing happen, or have it happen to us. Ask me what it is and that’s where I draw a blank.” He tapped the side of the box with his knuckles. “You’re doing the right thing making the most of your gift.”
A question kept nagging at him. James said, “You, uh, you said dead things talk to you. Just ghosts?”
Flynn smiled. “See, I’ve had a hard time calling it a gift,” he explained. “My dad used to call it a curse, once he had come around to actually believing I could do it. Not so surprisingly, we don’t hang out that much anymore, even though he lives up in Henderson.” He paused, then added conspiratorially, “I guess he’ll definitely believe me when he dies and I flip off his ghost.”
He looked down at the box, considering James’s question. “Not all the time human. Sometimes shadows. And sometimes nothing at all, but I’ll hear screaming. It sounds like...the most desperate screaming, coming from a deep pit of despair.” Flynn looked up at James. “It can really put a damper on date night.”
James averted his eyes. “Yeah, I bet.” For a second he was still and his focus seemed to be somewhere else, then he moved around the perimeter of the table. “No matter what your dad told you, it is a gift. Help people get across, solve cases, whatever you want to do. But Flynn, don’t take this the wrong way. If that kind of thing gets under your skin… inhuman screaming… don’t spend too much time around people who use magic. Stick to funeral homes and graveyards. Ordinary crime scenes.”
The description from Flynn concerned James. Was he picking up a signal from a human soul in another realm, or something demonic? James rummaged through a collection of coins and handed a tarnished one to Flynn. It wasn’t recognizable currency, but a piece of metal inscribed with apotropaic magic. On one side, there was an exaggerated eye and the Greek words kamía zimiá den tha érthei. On the other, the head of a Gorgon.
“Put that in your wallet,” James advised.
“I’ll put it right next to my insurance card,” Flynn answered, taking the coin from James. After examining it closely for a few seconds, he took out his leather wallet and slipped it inside. “Looks like I’m all stocked up,” he commented, gesturing to the box full of supplies.
“Just out of curiosity, do you also have anything on telekinesis?” He was thinking, of course, of Ellie.
“Don’t tell me you’ve got that, too.” James laughed. “A lot of the inventory looks at things like this through the lens of magic. You just have to translate it. It’s not talking to dead people, it’s channeling or necromancy. It’s not telepathy, it’s a levitation spell. But some of the principles are the same when it comes to focus. You’re welcome to check out the books, they’re downstairs behind the candles.” He looked around to make sure he’d put everything back in its place and headed down the steps.
Flynn shook his head with the ghost of a smile. “No, but a friend of mine does, and she’s kind of floundering for guidance. Not unlike me, actually.” The rest of the details he kept to himself. Ellie deserved her privacy, but he could refer her to Curiosities, as well. He followed James down the staircase, carrying his boxed haul.
“I’m starting to think I might have had it easy,” James said, pointing out the right area of bookshelves for what Flynn needed. “I grew up surrounded by magic. I knew early on what I could do. It didn’t wait to slap me in the face in my twenties.” He walked over to the register, where his bag sat on the floor. He went deep into a zippered pocket and came up with a small, silver engraved mirror, the same one he’d had Celeste hold up and look at when he had a spiritual hitchhiker attached to him. With his back still to Flynn, James held up the mirror and looked at the younger man’s reflection over his shoulder. Making sure.
“I guess there’s no road map for this kind of stuff,” Flynn shrugged affably. Then he frowned. “Unless there is, and I just forgot to get in line when they were handing it out.” He pulled out his wallet once again. He had no idea how much this stuff was going to cost, but he assumed it would make a sizable dent in his bank account. Small-town truck stop employee wasn’t exactly a lucrative gig.
“I can’t remember if I’ve said ‘thank you’ for helping me,” Flynn continued. “So just in case: thanks. I, uh...it’s hard for me to ask for help sometimes.”
James dropped the mirror in a safe spot and came back over to Flynn. “Yeah, we’ve got that in common,” he agreed, pulling on his ear. “I have to know them. Even then it’s not my favorite thing. But neither is losing, or dying.” The magic user watched Flynn with the wallet and started ringing up the items in the box. The rocks and incense were cheap, the books higher, the plastic baggie the most expensive item. “I’m gonna ring this up on the employee discount, but I want to make a trade. If you ever get a call from me or Celeste Henry, answer it. Magic users wander into all kinds of spiritual traffic. One day we might need your help with a translation. That good by you?” James waited to ring the total. There wasn’t an employee discount, since they walked out with whatever they wanted, but Flynn didn’t need to know it.
“Yeah, of course,” Flynn nodded in agreement. It was only fair in his mind, plus it sounded kind of cool and adventurous. Of course, the reality might not be that glamorous, but he didn’t much care.
“I mean, it would be great to feel useful, instead of just sitting around wishing I had a different life, y’know?”
James watched him for a moment, not liking the sound of whatever well of unhappiness that had come from, and pressed the button. The register spit out a receipt. “I think if you want it bad enough, and you let people know what you can do, you might find yourself with a different life, anyway.”
Since the box seemed to be doing a fine job of concealing what Flynn was holding, James left it up to him whether or not he wanted a paper bag.
Flynn took the receipt and stuffed it in his hip pocket. “Working on it,” he grinned, picking up the box once again, the ring of his keys around one finger. “I’ll see you around.” With that, he turned around and exited the shop, and back out onto the street.