The Plot Thickens 1 - Previous Stories Page 9
He stood in the remnants of an abandoned shack. The metropolis sprawled out beneath him pulsing its iridescence into a night already illuminated by a full moon. Jack Devoes attention was on other lights. He bent down between the three fires and numerous candles and chalked out the symbols. The corresponding sounds formed and fell from his lips - a call to her, a call for her power, a call to bind her to his bidding. Cassandra awoke from her enchanted sleep, unable to resist the summons. Moving towards the call she slipped through the wood as if she were one with it and once the circle was complete she was there; in the centre, awaiting his command, awaiting the task she has been called to undertake.
Cassandra was touched with the beauty of the forest and its living organics played and moved across her skin. Jack could not help but be awe-struck, affected by her fractal fragrance, its dance an infinite waltz across her ever-changing skin. He welcomed her and told her what he expected her to do for him - the complete destruction of that Babylon which spread out beneath them. She did not like the idea as she was not one to wish for the death of living things no matter how stupid they were but it was well within her power and she was bound to obey his commands. Jack then unzipped his fly and told her there was something else she could do first. He stepped into her circle and Cassandra smiled; there was no other way she could have avoided doing his bidding.
Red trickled out of the circle as Cassandra moved down the mountain. She wanted to return to her home deep in the undergrowth but knew that she was now bound. First she had to find a new master, and a new task, if she was to return to the home she loved so much. Descending the mountain she saw him and at first was frightened - because he looked so much like the man she had just murdered - but she did not have time to be afraid because he marched right over and offered greetings. "Good evening. So you are the magical sorcerer my brother told me we were meeting… where is he? I'm sure his apocalyptic desires will be the end of him." Soloman was not surprised to see her as his brother had told him they were to meet a conjuring bitch who was to help them in such ways they could only dream of.
So Soloman told her of his desires as they walked back to the broken-down house the brothers called home. Rather than burn to persuade, like his sibling, he wanted irony in his anarchism - satirical reflections like the balancing of an equation. A tabloid reporter would wake up to find himself on the front page embroiled in a host of lies; fast food restaurants would find themselves filled with rubbish that would never disappear; advertising agents would be forever bugged with optical illusions of a perpetually spinning coca-cola sign, an infliction that would never disappear even when they shut their eyes.
The next morning the papers were evidence enough that Jack Devoe had not been lying when he said the girl could work some magic. Thus Soloman's brain buzzed with poetical terrorism fully powered with this fresh potential. The enchantress was only too pleased to listen to the eruption of ideas that spewed from his brain and so chaos ran amok as bailiffs got orders to turn up and take their own possessions away; bank managers found themselves in serious debt and security officers could not understand why all the cameras were now pointing at them.
As the days passed so the discord ensued. Tobacco company execs developed throat cancer; the pharmaceutical companies became diseased from their own drugs. It was a mutating mirror like an avenging angel.
Soloman, although delighted with the redressing of balance they were spreading far and wide, desired something much more close to home. Cassandra, who was used to such admiration soon realised Soloman's new game. She believed he was too great a man to deserve a fatal punishment so she tricked him. She lead him to the circle from whence she had been summoned and told him she would be free only when he broke it. Soloman willingly obeyed but with the circle now incomplete she returned to the earth, the only lover she would ever know.
By Nick Feldman & Dan Hekate