latin words across my heart, symbols of infinity

[more_magic]

The last few days have been nothing but ruin, his few texts to Alex going unanswered and the one call he'd made sent to her voicemail with a speed that suggested something deliberate. The garbage bag with the bat and their fouled sheets still sits in the corner of the bedroom like something evil; he'll need to get rid of it before it starts to smell, but he can't yet. Not when it feels like the last link he has to a girl he never expected.

Alex had accused him that night of being more consumed by the how and not the why, and she hadn't been wrong. The reasons mattered, but not as much as the fact that she'd managed to do something he'd previously thought impossible. She'd let in a Grey, absorbed Helen Watson's spirit in an act of--what? Desperation? Anger? Thoughtless destruction? He still didn't know, any more than he understood how the aftermath of it hadn't left her as unresponsive as the other prospective candidates Lethe had documented and monitored, catatonic shells forever changed by their brush with things beyond the Veil. All Alex had suffered was a rough awakening by some EMT and an extended hospital stay as the fentanyl worked its way out of her system.

And the loss of her friend, her boyfriend, and everyone she'd ever known, but right now Darlington looks at that with a little less pity than he had before.

Were he back in New Haven, he'd have access to the collected stores of Lethe, the files and books and artifacts held at Il Bastone. He'd be able to start making some kind of sense of what he'd learned, falling into research and pulling evidence out of the library; the Albemarle Book and the house itself might disapprove, along with Dawes, but Darlington could weather that scorn for the sake of finding a solution to a mystery he knows would threaten them all. Here, there's nothing, or as good as such. He's done his best, late nights of search after search on his laptop, a glass of scotch beside him and Kirby watching from the couch or curled at the foot of the bed. He'd even tried the Darrow Public Library, not that it led to much of anything other than frustration.

None of it is leading anywhere, until he recalls a fragment of his conversation with Luke at the festival. Like a big library full of scary stuff, he'd said, talking with an odd confidence about some Archive within the bounds of the city containing accounts and records, things that just maybe he'd be able to use. It feels ludicrous to be taking the word of a child, especially at a time like this, but right now Darlington's ready to try venturing down just about any avenue.

Another search turns up an address only a few blocks away, and the next day, Darlington leaves work and heads directly for it. The outside is...unassuming, to say the least, none of the ostentation of the tombs he's used to or even Il Bastone's quiet red-brick grandeur, but he pushes the front door open and steps inside. Whatever he might find, at least it's better than nothing.

Comments

[eliotwaugh]

Ah, well that explains a bit--a child's assessment is naturally going to differ from Eliot's own, where he'd describe the place more like a cramped shambles full of confusing nonsense. He nods, with a little smile at Darlington's name. A little odd in a posh way, like he goes by his surname, maybe. Eliot wouldn't be surprised if he comes from money.

"It's decidedly not glamorous work," he says, inclining his head a bit, "but having something to puzzle over does help with the feeling of being...trapped here, I'm sure you understand."

He waves Darlington over to his desk and pulls over another chair. 'Greys' gives Eliot pause for a moment, his mind immediately leaping to wretched-looking stereotypical extraterrestrials, but then Darlington clarifies. Ghosts he has a little more understanding of, but really only recently, in Darrow.

"That's...huh," Eliot murmurs, trying to think about where to start his search. "So you do mean whatever...remains of people after they die, then? I don't know if I've heard of a human shade being able to possess someone, rather than...other types of spirits, but then these things must just differ from world to world." He opens the still-incomplete listing of supernatural occurrences and adds 'spirits' and, after a moment's thought, 'demons' to the filter.

"I'm sure the how of it isn't your only concern, though." He catches the implication that whatever sparked this search for Darlington was recent, and personal. He thinks about everything that happened when Quentin brought Alice back, how much it took, how badly it could have gone for all of them, how much his friend was changed. "More or less fine could mean...a lot of things, I imagine."

[more_magic]

"God, do I ever." Just that assumption of understanding feels like a kind of camaraderie. "Even when I wasn't trapped in a pocket universe only vaguely similar to the world I left, there were days when research was the only thing keeping me going." It's exaggeration, and not. Darlington still remembers those long, lonely days at fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, consuming books like air as he looked for some meaning beyond the grinding churn of his bleak day to day. At least he'd found it eventually, the cost of all of it worth something in the end.

He follows Eliot to his desk, nodding his thanks as he brings an extra chair over. "Not all of them have the power to pass through the Veil, but...yes, I do. The vast majority of spirits remain in the afterlife, but those with a particular reason to stay, a tether of one kind or another, have the strength to make it into the world of the living. And even fewer of those seem to have the desire, even, to take control of a body." His gaze turns towards the computer, watching as Eliot inputs the search terms. Demons isn't quite right, but if it gives him something he can use, he'll take it. "At least where I'm from. I'm getting the sense you've had a different set of experiences."

Eliot identifies the run of Darlington's thoughts with a precision that he might have found annoying under better circumstances. "The how of it matters," he says, "and I think it'd mattered more to...a lot of other people back home. But for me, it's the how and the why I'm trying to understand, even if I came to that realization a bit belatedly." His expression turns contemplative and distant, his mind weighing the things he could say while still preserving some of the things that are only Alex's to share.

"The more is that she lived," he says at last. "The less, that many of the people she knew at the time did not."

[eliotwaugh]

It's odd, listening to Darlington's little aside about a pocket universe. The details might be different but the sentiment is similar enough to how Eliot's felt in the past about his own circumstances. He wonders, not for the first time, if Darrow has a similar sort of pull as Fillory, drawing in lost obsessive sorts.

He nods a little at the explanation; it's a bit of a relief to know that this isn't a regular phenomenon, and that the ghost explosion around Halloween would have been as alarming to other transplants as it was to him.

"This is going to take a minute to compile," Eliot says by way of apology, "but it'll give you a rough list of...places and events that might be relevant and whether or not they're associated with a file that has, er, supernatural associations. So like there's the ley line, whatever's going on at the Bramford...and of course Kagura but that doesn't do anyone any good right now, so." He hums a bit to himself, wondering how to handle what seems like a pretty delicate topic.

"Ghosts didn't behave like that where I came from, it was more...I don't know, like Greek myth, apparently, people just standing around in the underworld. But I've seen maybe something similar to what you're talking about, when..." He pauses for a moment, frowning. "It's a thing with magic, if you do too much of it all at once, you can get lost in it and it just...burns a person up, turns them into something else. Not an easy thing to witness. So I don't know if that's helpful to you at all but it does fall under the 'weird tragic shit' umbrella."

[more_magic]

"Anything's useful," he says as they both settle back to wait on whatever the computer spits out. "I haven't spent much time looking into the ley, although I have a friend who's picked up some of the research one of her friends had been doing on the topic. Mapping it, trying to find some connection to a source." He makes a note to check in with Blue on that sometime soon; it might not solve anything more of this problem than whatever the Archive's able to provide him, but at least it'd be another thing to get him out of his head for an hour or two. "I'm living at the Bramford, and I've heard enough about Kagura, so both of those are at least not wholly unknown to me."

He ignores the way living at the Bramford makes him wonder where Alex has holed up, whether she's safe. Who she's with, if she's with anyone at all.

It's easier to keep focusing on Eliot as he keeps talking, even if what he has to say doesn't go far into the realm of anything soothing. "Christ," he says. "That's not...I've seen magic go too far, and read reports of it turning dangerous in the wrong hands, but never anything to quite that extent."

[eliotwaugh]

Eliot's relieved that this fellow's familiar enough with some of the magic in Darrow that he's not starting out completely empty-handed. And he gets it; casting a wide net makes sense when this place is so different from most people's prior experiences, operating along its own rules.

He sighs. "I've seen it happen to a friend of mine," he explains, trying not to think too hard on it. "We weren't exactly close but it...was something she did intentionally, and ended up saving a lot of lives in the process. Anyway," Eliot clears his throat, "I don't know what the usual circumstances are that would leave someone vulnerable to spirit possession, but...sometimes terrible things just end up happening."

Eliot drums his fingers on the mousepad, willing the software to work faster. He's not exactly alarmed by what Darlington's told him so far but he feels a little concerned, and can't quite manage any sort of normal small talk as a result. "So...and this may be none of my business, but I have to ask--is this ghost shit you're dealing with something other people need to be worried about here? Because if this is on the level of a public danger I'd feel negligent just giving you some basic data and calling it a day, you know?"

That maybe came out a little blunt, and Eliot winces a bit. "Sorry, I've been known to be a busybody. It's just that if people have been seriously harmed by this...Grey of yours, or still could be, I'd like to help, if I can."

It's not a worlds-ending quest, and it's not even Eliot's problem, or strictly his purview. But he still feels a responsibility.

[more_magic]

"Hell of a noble sacrifice," he says once Eliot's explained a bit more. It's difficult not to contrast it with everything he's learned about that night on Cedros, and Darlington doesn't try as hard not to as he might have only a few days ago. This friend of Eliot's made the choice to destroy herself, rather than rain down destruction on others; to save lives rather than take them.

Had that ever been a thought at all, in Alex's mind, or had her only drive--then, and now, and in the future--only ever been her own survival? He wishes he could be more certain of the answer.

He does bristle slightly at the next blunt bit of questioning that comes his way, but Darlington can't fault Eliot for it. He would have done the same, were their situations reversed. As a shepherd of Lethe, a guardian between the things in the dark and the rest of the world, he'd have needed to.

"It's not your business," he says, direct but not unkind. "Not that I blame you for asking. Quite frankly, I'm...having trouble balancing what feels like a necessary discretion with wanting to give you as much information as it'll take to help me find some kind of answer." He shakes his head, his smile gone rueful as he thinks.

"I have no reason to think this is a public danger," he says a moment later. "As far as I know, this only happened once, as far as the...affected individual is concerned, and that was back at home. In our world, whatever the approved terminology is. She doesn't seem to know how it happened, and I suppose that's what I'm really trying to understand. In case there's a chance, rare as it might be, that it reoccurs here in the city."

That's not all the why, of course, but for now Darlington hopes it's all the reasoning Eliot needs to know.

[eliotwaugh]

"Just desperate, really," Eliot mutters. The progress bar finally resolves itself and the report appears in a printable format; he really ought to press Martin for some better hardware to match the scope of the Archive's ambitions, but for now they make do. He sends it to print and when Darlington's rebuff comes it takes Eliot a moment, his jaw working, to think of a reply.

"Ah. I've overstepped, I apologize." He doesn't think Darlington seems offended, exactly, but the crisp politeness gives Eliot pause all the same. "I'm still used to this being the sort of thing that is my business, but I understand." And if he's being honest with himself, he's not sure he really wants to get involved, if whatever happened with this ghost business has Darlington so guarded. If it's personal, it's bound to be messy, and Eliot's life is enough of a mess on its own already.

He clears his throat and stands, going to retrieve the pages from the printer. "Good to know I don't need to reinforce my wards just yet, then." Eliot smiles as he hands them over. "I will say, Darrow seems to have an abundance of ghosts but if that's due to the...physics of this world I don't think anyone's found that out yet. You might be the one to crack it; let us know if you make any breakthroughs, maybe?" He'd love to have more hard data on this sort of thing. If he ends up dying in a version of New Jersey he'd hate to be trapped here for all eternity.

[more_magic]

"Like I said, I don't blame you," he says when Eliot apologizes. "If this had happened to someone else back in New Haven, it would have been my purview anyway, so...I get it. It's hard not to ask the same kinds of questions you might have back home."

The printer whirrs, spitting out a sheaf of pages dense with ink and hopefully enough information that he can find something usable in it. He nods his thanks when Eliot hands them over, his expression shifting briefly to one of more pointed interest at the subject of wards. "It could very well be," he agrees. "Whatever brings the rest of us here, from what seems like a myriad of different places, could make the Veil thinner here. More permeable, or attractive to different kinds of spirits. It's worth looking into."

He pauses, but his resistance only holds out so long. "Speaking of questions it's not quite my place to ask here...how do you set up your wards? The ones I learned are fairly specific to a given circumstance, again mostly to prevent spirit interference, but I've gotten rudimentary practice in others. Closing portals, preventing theft, that kind of thing."