Who: Zania and Gabriel When: night, Tuesday, July 17th Where: the salon, car Status: complete
When Gabriel woke up, it was slow and painful. He was confused about where he was and what was happening, the first thing he knew was just that everything felt bad. He took a gasping breath as his head lolled against the floor, every muscle aching when he attempted to roll onto his back. It took a couple of tries, all of Gabriel’s limbs feeling thick and heavy and clumsy. There was another layer to whatever was wrong -- there was a strong sense of something missing, of an isolation he couldn’t understand yet. What the fuck had happened?
Gabriel sat up slowly and tried to let his head stop spinning, slowly coming to the realization that he was lying on his salon floor. Had someone broken in? He struggled to remember something -- anything -- from before he’d passed out ... or been knocked out? He lifted a shaky hand to run it over his head, but didn’t feel any wounds he could identify. Something had gone very wrong, though, and something was still very wrong. Gabriel groped around in his pocket until he got his phone out, his vision a bit blurred as he squinted at the screen. He managed to poke it in the right spots to get it to call Zania, and Gabriel turned it on speaker. He was disoriented and hurting and a little lost, calling his woman was all he could think to do.
Though Gabriel was late coming home, Zania had no reason to believe anything was wrong. The day had been just like any other, nothing out of the ordinary, as it had been for months. No carnival, no fog, no reason to worry, so she’d come home, opened a bottle of wine, and started cooking dinner. When the sun had fully set and she had yet to hear from him, she sent him a quick text asking when he’d be home, but it was only when the phone rang that worry kicked in. They weren’t phone talkers, neither of them, so for him to call rather than respond by text was unusual. She frowned as she answered. “Hey, babe,” she said, setting down her glass. “Everything okay?”
Zania’s voice brought a drop of relief against Gabriel’s jumbled fear, and he could hear the concern in her tone ... but everything still felt so weird and wrong, it didn’t actually help all that much. His mouth felt like sandpaper as he licked his lips and tried to find his voice. “Baby, hey ... no,” he rasped. Gabriel hunched over where he had the phone cradled in his lap to get closer to the microphone. His phone felt like a concrete brick, his arm was so weak. “Somethin’s wrong, m’still ... I think I got like, jumped?” His words were coming out slow and obviously confused. Gabriel realized he wasn’t even exactly sure what he wanted Zania to do about any of this, he’d just known he needed her.
“Shit,” Zania cursed, immediately springing into action. “How bad are you hurt? Should I call someone?” Someone being an ambulance, but she was praying he wasn’t hurt so bad that she couldn’t handle it herself. She pulled on her shoes, grabbed her bag and a jar of salve from the fridge, and was heading to the door before she remembered to turn back around and turn off the stove. It delayed her all of ten seconds and she hoped Gabriel wouldn’t die while she prevented the house from potentially burning down. It all happened so fast that barely a minute later she was rushing out towards her car, not even sure of her destination. “Where are you? Still at the shop?”
“Yeah, shop.” Nothing felt broken, he was pretty sure his head wasn’t bleeding. It didn’t hurt in any particularly bad spot, there was just pain diffused everywhere in his body. And something ... it was so quiet. Much more quiet than Gabriel was used to. Sure, it was past closing time, but even then there was always something small and alive around -- mice in the trash in the alley, birds coming and going from the roof, the quiet buzzing presence of insects tugging at the edges of his magic. All of that was dead silence now. “M’okay I think, just ...” he started to vaguely answer Zania. Then it hit him -- not only could Gabriel not hear any life, he couldn’t feel it either. In fact, he couldn’t feel his connection to the earth at all. His heart started pounding hard again, and he forced himself to sit up straighter, trying to concentrate enough to find that spark he knew had to be there ... and nothing. “Zan? Something’s wrong,” Gabriel repeated, fear finally sinking into his voice. “I can’t feel my magic.”
Zania was in her car, pulling out of the driveway, when Gabriel said he couldn’t feel his magic, and it was like being dunked in a tub full of ice water. Fear, sharp and cold, ran through her veins, and she hit the gas so fast she almost took out Vex’s mailbox. Only once had she ever heard of a witch losing their magic, and Reagan’s case involved a century’s old witch that should now be gone for good. No other cause struck her and that couldn’t possibly be the case this time. “Are you sure?” she asked, struggling to believe anything could strip a witch of their magic. It was a part of them and removing it was akin to removing an arm or, more appropriately, their heart. She wasn’t sure she could function without it. But saying so wouldn’t help Gabriel and she needed to see it for herself, feel that the spark was no longer there. “I’m on my way, babe. Just hold on. You’re gonna be okay.”
Suddenly Gabriel’s heart was very loud in his ears, along with a high-pitched ringing that started off faint but gradually rose in volume like someone was turning a knob. His breathing began to pick up, and the air felt thin in his chest. Gabriel heard Zania’s words but they sounded tinny and far away. He only felt ice in the pit of his stomach when he tried desperately to get in touch with that indescribable warmth he’d always had inside of him -- that feeling that was like sand under his feet and burrowing into the heat of the earth and the friction of unimaginably slow rock all at once. Gabriel felt nothing instead, just empty quietness and it was awful. “I dunno what happened,” he mumbled, his breath hitching. He pulled one knee up closer to him and leaned against it as the burn started in his nose and throat. Zan was coming as quick as she could, he just had to keep his shit together until then.
“Just stay with me, okay?” Zania said, and proceeded to talk him through her drive there, telling him every turn she took, when she had to stop, and how close she was. She refused to hang up the phone. Even if he didn’t feel up to talking, she didn’t want to let him go. It wasn’t a long drive, but it felt like it took forever to get there, her panic rising with every second. How could something like this happen? Who or what had the power to strip him of his magic? Nothing that she’d ever heard of, but she was prepared to dig into her research and find out. If there was a way to take his magic, then there had to be a way to get it back. The car screeched to a stop as she pulled up out front, and for a heartbeat she just stared at the building. It was dark. Way too dark. Instinctively, she pushed on her magic and the auras in the area intensified. As she climbed out of the car, she turned on the flashlight on her phone and headed into the salon. “Gabe?” she called out, hurrying towards him as she scanned the area for any potential threats. But there was only him, alone in the dark, his aura ravaged from having the magic ripped away.
Gabriel didn’t have much to say, his throat mostly locked up with emotion and grief and that awful empty feeling. It was like someone had taken a limb from him -- several of them, maybe. But even though he couldn’t speak, he was grateful for Zan’s voice in his ear, assuring him every second that she was on her way. He heard her come in and made an effort to get to his feet, but he’d only made it to his knees by the time the light swept over him. Gabriel set his phone down and reached out for her. As soon as he was close enough, he wrapped his arms around Zania’s waist to bury his face in her stomach before he let go of that tenuous control he’d been clinging to. Gabriel cried into her warmth and familiar smell, his body trembling with all the shock and emotion. He desperately wanted to feel the heat from her magic fire, to let that part of their souls entwine like he’d gotten so used to ... but there was nothing there. No feeling, no sense of Zania’s magic, and that added sharply to the sense of loss.
Zania wrapped her arms around Gabriel and held him tight, her own body shaking with grief and rage. Someone or something had done this to him, and she wanted to hunt them down and rip them apart, to bring back Gabriel’s magic and wrap him up in it like a blanket. But she knew it wasn’t that simple. Any being who could steal his magic had to be incredibly powerful and if she ran in, guns blazing, it was possible she’d find herself in the same position. Furthermore, Gabriel needed her right now. He needed her for comfort and support, not to strike out on a revenge fantasy she couldn’t even begin to fulfill. One hand ran over his dreads, attempting to soothe though she knew it was impossible. Physically, he felt the same, but when her magic reached out to merge with his, all she found was empty space. Her heart broke for him and her eyes stung, tears burning as she struggled to keep herself together. “You’re alive,” she whispered. “That’s what matters right now. You’re alive.”
It was like a nightmare, waking up to one of the worst things he could imagine happening to him, with no idea of what had happened before that. He’d been closing up, cleaning, and then ... what? There was just a blank space in Gabriel’s memory, and it was terrifying. He didn’t even have security cameras up to check back on, lulled into a sense of security by the smallness of the town and his own power. Had the behavior of the insects and small animals around the shop alerted him to some problem? Had he tried to fight back? Who the fuck had ambushed him? There were too many questions, all just seeming to fall into the black hole inside of him. Gabriel tried to get himself under control, but it took several minutes to slow down the sobbing. He finally eased his death grip on his girlfriend, sitting back on his heels a bit to swipe at his eyes. “Did you ... did you see anything broken? When you c-came in?” he asked Zania haltingly.
Zania cried quietly with him, mourning the loss of his magic, but as much as it hurt, she wasn’t swept away in the grief. Her mind was spinning, trying to put together the pieces of what happened, but she was missing major pieces of the puzzle. She didn’t have a clear picture of what he remembered, if anything; all she had was her surroundings. It was dark, but everything looked in place. Outside it was darker still. Whatever did this had zapped the power, using the darkness to hide the attack. That seemed like a very human thing to do, but she knew there were creatures that did it naturally—but then a being of that caliber wouldn’t have left him alive unless they needed something else from him. Her eyes searched the darkness, looking again for another aura, a sign of life. They were alone. “No,” she said softly. “No broken doors or shattered glass. Whatever took out the lights did so another way. Did you see anyone? Anything?”
Gabriel didn’t feel like he had the energy to get up, and at the moment he wondered if he ever would. He just kind of wanted to lie down on the floor again and cling to Zania until the sun came up or his magic came back. He gave a helpless shake of his head, his expression pained as he lifted a hand to rub at the back of his neck. “Not ... that I remember,” Gabriel murmured. He’d never felt so small and helpless in his life, at least not since he’d been a tiny child, and it was so uncomfortable. “All I remember is sweeping up, and then ... just nothing. No noise, no wards triggered ... I just woke up --” Broken. He’d woken up broken and shattered and with something vital missing. That was how it felt anyway. Gabriel’s stomach sank as he realized what it might be, and his hands tightened in Zania’s clothes “What if they found me? From back home?”
As Zania listened, she wondered what could have gotten through his wards so easily, sneaking up on him without even a peep. Then it occurred to her that he might not have wards up at all. He was a witch through and through, but he didn’t turn to magic like she did. His shop wasn’t decades old, filled to the brim with magic. All that was standing between him and the outside world was a glass door, god dammit, and it hadn’t even been locked. It tore her up to think she could have done something to help prevent this, but before she could start wallowing properly, he asked a question that didn’t make any sense. “Who?” she asked, brow furrowing as she looked down at him. “Like, from NOLA?”
“Yeah,” Gabriel breathed, his eyes going wider as he looked around them again. Logically he knew nobody was going to jump out of the shadows to hurt them -- Zan could see auras and sense magic, and she would know if there was another witch in the building with them. Normally Gabriel would know too, but nothing was normal at the moment. Gabriel had no idea how or when they would fix this, just that it had to be fixed. But first they had to survive, and if someone from NOLA who meant him harm had tracked him here ... “There’s -- I left there under bad circumstances, but -- but I don’t know -- we should go,” he babbled haltingly. Gabriel started to struggle up to his feet. Everything was achy and felt bad, and they needed to get home where the wards were stronger.
“Shit,” Zania murmured quietly, though she wasn’t worried about being attacked right that moment. If there was another living being in the room with them, she’d have seen them. It was more that she had no idea who might have come up from NOLA—there were likely witches there with powers that outweighed her own and she’d rather not be caught by surprise. Gabriel was right. They should go. They’d be far safer at home. “Come on,” she said as she helped him to his feet. “Nic and Lem can come back for your car. We’ll worry about the shop in the morning.” There was a lot to sort out in that regard, she wasn’t even sure he’d want to come into work, but it wasn’t her highest priority. She wanted to know more about the potential threat from down south; hopefully Gabriel would be willing to talk a bit more about it once they were someplace safe.
Part of him hated that he needed the help to begin with, but mostly Gabriel was grateful for the hand up and support. Zania was taking it seriously and jumping into action. Gabriel had no idea what he would’ve done if he was alone. He kept his arm around Zania and moved as fast as he could with her to exit the building. He was glad that he’d already locked up all the cash in the safe for deposit the next day, even though neither of the doors seemed tampered with at all. Gabriel grabbed his backpack out of the office and locked up as they left, tossing up a hope that the place wouldn’t be ransacked the next time he came back. He had bigger things to worry about, but he still needed his business. Gabriel’s anxiety rose as they walked out into the dark and hurried toward the car, like someone might swoop down on them at any second to finish the job, but they made it into Zan’s car without incident. Gabriel tried to ignore how quiet the night seemed, how disconnected he felt. He shoved his pack between his feet and scrubbed his hands over his face, doing his best to keep the distress down.
It felt like there were a thousand things that needed to be done and Zania’s brain was trying to catalog them all at once, but first and foremost, she needed to get Gabriel home. Everything else could wait by comparison. If she couldn’t leave his side, then she knew she could depend on those closest to them to assist. But the hardest part was not knowing what to do to fix it. Zania loved puzzles, but not ones that put her loved ones in danger, and this one felt impossible. She was wracking her brain, trying to figure out how such a thing could have happened. Even if it was someone from down south, this felt too big for anyone human to manage. Once they were in the car, heading back towards the house, she finally spoke up, her eyes darting over to where Gabriel sat beside her. “What happened in NOLA?” she asked quietly. They were warded up the ass back at Ludlow, but she still wanted to know who they might be dealing with.
Gabriel had lived in Point Pleasant for months now, and things had stayed quiet. If someone had really been determined to find him, it wouldn’t have been hard to find out about his auntie up north, but why would they wait until now? Surely the heat had died down in the eight months since he’d fled home. Gabriel had vaguely told Zania that some bad shit went down back home, but he’d purposely kept the details from her and now it was coming back to bite him in the ass. Or something was biting, that was for sure. Even if he’d still wanted to keep his guilt a secret, Gabriel didn’t really have the mental fortitude to lie at the moment. He slowly licked his lips and tried to pick his words carefully through all the terrified noise in his brain. “I used to ... do bad shit,” he said finally. “I helped some bad people rob some places, with my magic ... one of these rich gangbanger fucks had a few cougars he kept as pets and we used ‘em in some jobs. I was supposed to control ‘em, but ... one got away from me one night and killed one of our guys.”
Zania listened as she drove, glancing over at him as he elaborated on a past she’d only been able to guess at before. Knowing he’d been trying to get away from whatever he’d done down there, she hadn’t asked for the details. He wasn’t the only one to make some bad decisions; the carnival fun house wasn’t the only thing she’d ever burnt down. But if someone was hunting him down, it was better to know than to be in the dark. The only thing that truly surprised her was the use of cougars, in large part because she had never considered it, but it made sense for Gabriel. “Were any of the others witches?” she asked. Like Gabriel, she thought it odd that anyone would wait so long before seeking revenge, but maybe whoever it was needed time to find him. It all seemed unlikely, but it was the only possibility she could come up with.
In some organized crime circles it was a status symbol to own exotic animals, especially big cats. Gabriel had always had a reputation for being “good with animals,” and word had gotten around to the wrong people. He’d made a pretty penny for a while, acting as something like a zookeeper before it became obvious to the men in charge that he could do more than care for them. It hadn’t been a good situation, but Gabriel had needed the money, and doing curses and wards for people wasn’t really his bag. Looking out for the cats and giving them an outlet for their aggression had been kind of fulfilling for a while. Then it had all gone to shit, like crime did sometimes, and it had been his fault. And now they’d found an even better revenge than just outright killing him. If it had been them. “A few of ‘em,” he answered Zania with a heavy sigh. “And if they didn’t flip on me ... I knew a lot of witches back home. I didn’t tell but a few people where I was going ... shit, I better make some phone calls.” Gabriel started groping around for his phone, worried suddenly about the family he’d left behind in NOLA.
Zania knew Gabriel was probably thinking of his family, or any close friends he’d left behind. He hadn’t told her why he’d left, so it was possible he hadn’t told them either, so there was a chance they might have told someone looking for him where he’d gone without thinking anything of it. But if they were as bad as he said they were, if they were the kind of people who would take a witch’s magic, then they could have pressured someone into talking. She hoped that wasn’t the case, but had no basis for her hope, no way to reassure him. “It wouldn’t hurt to check in,” she said softly, her concern written all over her face. As devastating as this was, it would be ten times worse if someone back home had been hurt to find him. “You tell me what you need. Anything, babe.” It might have seemed like a casual offer, but she meant it.
It was fairly late, but all of the people Gabriel was close to were night owls. His hands were shaking as he struggled to pull up his contacts and wrack his brain for who he had told about his plans. Only the closest people. He said something vague and appreciative to Zania at her offer, not doubting that she meant it at all, but his focus was on making sure his family and best friends were okay. He was halfway through dialing his mom when he stopped and looked over at Zan, a sudden wave of helplessness washing over him. “What ... what should I tell them?” he asked in a small voice. If he got no answer, he would probably freak out a bit, but if they did answer and all was well ... what could he say? Most of them had no idea what he’d done -- or allowed to happen, at least. But they all knew about his magic, and starting to tell people that had been taken from him might create some unnecessary panic. “I can’t say my magic’s gone, I just -- I can’t.”
Zania pressed her lips together, her brows drawing in as her mind raced for an answer. Anyone who knew what he was would know how crippling losing his magic would be. She had no doubt that he didn’t want to go there, not yet, not if he didn’t have to. “You don’t have to tell ‘em,” she said. “Just check in. Say you got a disturbing phone call and just want to make sure everything’s alright. It was probably a prank, but… you just wanted to be sure.” It wasn’t a complete lie—he did want to make sure everything was okay back home. Most importantly, it would allow Gabriel to tell he’d lost his magic when he was ready. Or never. If they got it back, he would never have to tell them. As unlikely as it seemed, Zania thought there had to be a way. If there was a way to take it away, there had to be a way to get it back.
It was a good idea, and the relief that flooded Gabriel almost made his throat close up with emotion. He didn’t have to tell anybody anything he didn’t want to, but he also didn’t have to pretend that nothing was wrong, so it was the perfect answer. “Yeah, yeah okay,” Gabriel murmured unsteadily. He swallowed thickly and reached over to grip Zania’s thigh for a moment. It was a grateful squeeze but also something to ground him. “Thank you.” Gabriel took a deep breath and took his hand back to start reaching out to his people. For the rest of the drive to Ludlow, he checked in with the short list of people back in New Orleans who knew where he was. Most of them were sleepy and vaguely annoyed at the late hour, but they all picked up for him and everyone said they were fine, nothing weird had happened lately, nobody had asked about him. By the time Zania pulled up to their house, Gabriel was relieved but even more confused. He looked over at his girlfriend as he hung up with his sister and gave a helpless shake of his head. “I don’t know what happened, I really don’t,” he murmured, his tone a little baffled.
Zania was quiet as Gabriel made his way through the list. One by one, he called them, and one by one he found them safe and sound. It should have been a relief, but it stirred up more questions than answers. If everyone in New Orleans was fine, then how had they found him? Point Pleasant was far too far away for a location spell, unless it was one of immense power. Then again, it would take that to rip a witch’s magic away from him. In which case, who the fuck were they dealing with? She looked over at him as she pulled into the driveway, wishing she could come up with some kind of plan—for protection, for revenge, something, anything. But she had nothing. Not yet, anyways. “We’ll figure it out,” she said softly, reaching for his hand. “We don’t have to have all the answers tonight.” It didn’t feel like enough, but it was all she could offer at the moment. There had to be a way to get his magic back. She wouldn’t settle for anything less.
A wave of surreality washed over Gabriel, and his fingers felt a little numb as he curled them around Zania’s. There was a profound sense of loss, but also a feeling of dissociation, like his mind couldn’t quite grasp what had happened. It reminded him of the few times in his life when he’d gotten news of the deaths of people close to him -- the universe holding its breath while the realization that everything had suddenly changed for the worse sank in, one foot in the Before and one foot in the After. Only he was completely on the After side now, wasn’t he? His magic was gone, that constant sense of energy and connectedness that had guided so much of his life. Gabriel swallowed thickly and nodded a bit, trying to lean on that reassurance. At least he wasn’t alone, and Zania was powerful and brilliant, and he needed that when he’d never felt so helpless. “Yeah, we’ll figure it out,” he murmured, trying to convince himself of it too. He wanted to cry again, but not in the car, so Gabriel reached for the car door.
It didn’t feel like near enough and Zania had to shake the feeling that this was a failure on her part. She’d never dealt with a situation like this one, hadn’t even thought it a possibility, and tried to tell herself that no one would be prepared with a solution for the moment it happened. And yet, she still felt inadequate. She’d sorted through every spell she had in her basement, the boxes of random spells her ancestors had acquired, cataloging each and every one so that she would know what she had in her possession, and Zania knew without a shadow of a doubt that she didn’t have a spell in there to take away a witch’s magic. If she did, then maybe she could reverse engineer it, she was crafty like that, but she didn’t, and it left her grasping for straws, unsure where to start. She took a deep, shaky breath and turned off the car to follow Gabriel inside.