Re: [log: antique store - daniel/claire/louis]
"It drowned them." He swallowed. "They were meeting in the sewers, so it drowned them. They tried to...control it. They set it on those random, high profile killings. The cult thought they could use their god to reap the benefits of death, use the power of the sacrifices." He spread his hands. "It may seem ridiculous to you, considering the circumstances, but I am not a religious person. If you had asked me two years ago whether I believed in the existence of the soul, I think I would have said that I didn't. But what they did...whether it was actually my soul, I cannot say. But they used some part of me, and the thing's connection to me, and bound it up in an old talisman, a saint medal. They used me to control it, for a little while. And then it killed them the moment it had the opportunity. Retribution." He clasped his hands together. "The talisman is gone, now. I thought that was the end of it. But it was only a tool to manipulate it, not its source. So here I am, and here it is." He pressed his fingertips thoughtlessly to his chest, where the scar still was, underneath his shirt. "Still here, and seemingly not going anywhere."
He didn't seem so well-rested, anymore. His voice was strong, but the edge of his eye was wet, and he didn't meet Claire's eye. It wasn't an easy topic, the thing, the intense psychic terror he felt when he contemplated the possibility that it might always be there, always sliding, whispering, murmuring, wielding and exacting power, demanding sacrifice, integrating itself so tightly into his being that the intermingled persons were indistinguishable. He might forget himself, one day, forget what it meant to be himself. Or perhaps he gave himself too much credit. Perhaps he would simply be subsumed.
"There's no need for you to apologize either," he said. He glanced to Daniel. "Really."
He picked up the mug again, sipping at his tea while Claire asked what bled through. "I'm afraid it isn't consistent," he said, a bit more steadily. "Sometimes images, of places, of people, of events. The desert, the sand at night. Italy in morning, Ireland in the afternoon." He smiled crookedly. "It sounds romantic. I think it trickles out ideas I might find palatable. The beauty of the world over millenia. I was making tea the other day, and I thought of a phrase in a language I didn't know. As naturally as any other thought. A thought about what I was going to put into the shop window, a thought in another language, and then a thought about the shopping." He smiled, weakly. "I could say it was extraordinary, if only it was. I looked it up. Sumerian, apparently. It was my own, plain thought, about going to see my sister, only in Sumerian."
He took the paper from Claire. Nothing immediately burst into flames, and nothing about him seemed to change. "It is familiar," he admitted, glancing up at her. He was starting to feel as if he should stop agreeing with her, stop talking - but wasn't that why she was here? So they could be sure? He felt sick. "A mace with two lion's heads, yes? Not...very practical." He covered his mouth with a hand, looking at the sigil, thinking. "I didn't research the incidents you mentioned," he said. "I thought it best to wait and discuss it with you without prejudicing myself. But you found this in the Capital."
Had it gotten warmer in the room in the last few minutes? It had, and the kettle wasn't responsible. The summer heat seemed to be leaking in more and more from outside. "You found this with the dead?" That was why she was here, wasn't it?