THE FICTOGNOSTICS WANT THEIR BOOKSHOP BACK (Nine-Ten)

NINE

There was an explosion of the soul.

Justin felt his incorporeal existence be cut in twain. It wasn’t a painful experience, but it was disconcerting. Whatever spirit he had was shook wildly and there was a moment where he felt a deep, scarring sense of terror at the great unknown – was he dying? Was he dead? He remembered falling down – and then –

He remembered how good those pancakes tasted.

He was the second soul, the active soul, the soul with a goddamn personality – it was that part which would rise to unknown heavens. It was this strange and uncertain thing that had lied to Jade, that considered itself a talented writer, that had an interest in mythology and science fiction, that had lied to Jade, that would make up stories just to feel good about himself – perhaps it was his grandmother falling terribly ill, or him having watched a completely mythical movie – and it was him who wanted to believe, but couldn’t, but needed to believe in UFO’s and the possibility of a hollow earth and the truth behind the eleventh of September, that had lied to Jade…

The other Justin remained.

This was the creature who understood that he needed to work much harder if he hoped to succeed, that had sunk many hours reading the philosophical texts, that had read the autobiographies of Oppenheimer, Thompson, Tolkien, that kept a passing interest in biology and accepted the theory of evolution, that knew enough about mathematics to understand that it was a system for understanding the world, that knew that he loved Jade, that was carefully learning Portuguese, perhaps successfully, that was able to understand how currency and Australian politics worked, that knew that Collins Street was before Bourke…

Even the facts were uncertain; but still, they remained. Only the fiction of the soul, the story – of sorts – was given life, given personality.

Justin looked down and saw his own fallen body, and the broken corpse of Vic. He felt every conceivable emotion at the death of the bastard sorcerer – rage, melancholy, sorrow, anxiety, joy, many more – in a single moment.

Suddenly, he was swimming, flailing, drowning, suffocating in a lake that was not a lake – the deepest lake. He felt the dark, cold waters take him, at once still and alive, and struggled not to sink.

There were no waves, and yet water crashed upon his head as he was pulled down by unseen hands. The breath was thrown from his lungs, and he knew he was going to die.
This was not a place to know.

Suddenly she was there, naked. He, too, was there – naked. She was sitting on the gap between his legs, his penis in her soft hands. Panting, a small giggle. It felt good – really good. He didn’t know what to say, so he kept it simple. A groan. Whispered, “Fuck.” Stroking.

He’d open his eyes. She’d smile. He’d look up, into her eyes.

Her eyes.

Her eyes her eyes her eyes her eyes her eyes her eyes her eyes her eyes her eyes her eyes her eyes her eyes her eyes were spiders and the spiders dropped down her face (she was weeping, crying spiders, arachnotears) and they dropped down upon his throbbing, wilting member and bit and bit and bit…

And he was drowning in a shallow lake. The lake was a bookstore, and he’d just put in his resume. Robertson’s in Frankston was the name of the place, and the manager appraised his meager qualifications with a cutting eye. He was old, thought Justin, with the eyes of a lion…

“Writer, huh?” said the manager. Not too old, actually – maybe a grey forty?

“Y-yes,” said Justin.

“What’ve you written, then?”

“Uh…”

“Come on, come out with it. The RECENT PUBLICATIONS area of this form is blank. What’ve you written? Anything we can stock? ISBN’s, maybe?”

Justin knew he hadn’t written anything. He liked putting ‘writer’ on his resume – made him feel a little qualified, a little special, maybe even legitimate. He couldn’t help putting down RECENT PUBLICATIONS, either, because what did a writer do except publish…?

They looked at him with empty eyes.

No spiders, but…

Black water rushed up to meet him. The ship was sinking. He’d be better off stacking shelves at Coles; maybe he could apply for the dole. Maybe, maybe, maybe…

He wanted pancakes!

They watched.

Justin screamed and fell –

“Are you ill?” asked the passerby. He was bald, with round – not chubby – features, eyes that twinkled like the stars… and he was wearing a dress. A nice dress. It was pink and rather conservative; didn’t show too much leg and was fairly acceptable around the bust. It had frills. The subtlety of the outfit was ruined by a combination of two elaborate gold earrings and garish makeup (lipstick of the blood, foundation of the flesh, eyeliner the colour of rot…).

“I said, are you ill?”

The man looked familiar. Something about the eyes. His naked head looked like it had been designed for funny Eastern hats… the kind of hats that magicians and snake-charmers wore. Indians – yoga – mysticism…

Justin had seen him before – on the back of one of his books. MOONCHILD… his name was Aleister Crowley, and he was in drag. Justin was too shaken to reply, and he was certainly in no condition to spot the raging erection that had caused the bottom of Crowley’s dress to go the way of a tent.

“Fine, fine, fine, th-thank you,” said Justin, nodding his head much too enthusiastically.

“I bet you are,” said the transsexual thaumaturgist, as he licked his lips. “I bet.”

Justin felt fear. Suddenly, Crowley was upon him, screaming all manner of obscenities: “Every man and woman is a star!”, “Love is the law, love under will!, “I am divided for love’s sake, for the chance of union!”, “Sit still! Stop thinking! Shut up! Get out!”, and, “I will fuck you in the arse, little boy!”

Crowley the rapist in drag tore at Justin’s clothes, and they fell away like fine silk. Crowley was there, then, the wand freed, held in his left hand – the hand of the destroyer – and he slapped Justin’s buttocks and giggled manically. The lipstick was smeared.

“Aha!”

There was a short moment of sodomy, and Justin was falling, crying, weeping – he needed the pancakes bad and he needed them now so hungry -

He awoke in Cardanea.

TEN

There were things to be done.

Reed had crashed into the kitchen only moments after Justin had left for his journey to Cardanea. When he saw the two sprawling bodies he dropped what he was holding and swore. Three heavy books, bound in the skin of Reed’s enemies, dropped to the floor. They were Babilu shards, expressions of power written by those sorcerers who had heard, in a moment of supreme gnosis, the first and final language of Babel…

Each was untitled, as was the tradition, named by he who owned them – a different interpretation for each possessor. Reed had named the first THE SECRET VOCAB OF SECRET MELBOURNE, the second ENOCHIA LOST, and the third AND GOD WAS GOOD ON HIS PROMISE. They might have been horrible titles, but hey were very good identities of power, and the shards themselves were happy.

They’d been written by Frater Vic himself, and thus the best possible sources to draw the required sorcery from to heal the wounded bastard sorcerer. Vic had sold the lot for two million dollars in cash, safe haven in the shop, and two perfectly crafted blasted rods. He was, as usual, rather desperate.

“No,” said Reed. “No, no – come on, Vic – damn it – come…”

There was enough of the sticky ink-like substance – the fictoplasm – for Reed to know. Vic was dead. The boy had gone into shock. It was a combination, probably, of the pancakes and the temporal mind-fuck. He’d expected this. Vic had come back, chased by Lovecraft’s damned angle-hounds, simply to warn him – and to deal with business in the hazy present.

The books would be fine were they were. The fictoplasm was still, now, killed by the harsh reality of oxygen and methane and everything else that freely composed the network mesh most referred to as ‘air’. There was no fiction in chemicals. Not yet.

But Justin was fine. Shocked, but fine. Reed knew he’d probably find him wandering around an eternal labyrinth – chased by mustached cutlery, perhaps, or something even more sinister – or maybe, if the kid was lucky, stuck somewhere in the Outer Thoughts, chased by a bomb-throwing Marx or having conversation with the darkly romantic Poe…

Reed almost went to fetch the books on summoning the soul and reanimating the dead – on the resurrection and the story – before he realized it was hopeless. Even if he burnt out the three Babilu shards, used everything he had, too much of Vic’s fiction lay on the floor, staining the kitchen tiles, pitch on white. Everything of Vic that wasn’t solid, that wasn’t nailed down – and that was a lot – had been ruined, twisted beyond repair. Perhaps something was salvageable…

Reed shook his head. There would be nothing. He knew how they worked. Attacks upon the story of a soul was a vicious, heinous crime, even amongst the lawfully challenged fictomagicians, but something irreparable – something so terrible – were loathed and feared in equal parts…

Either the Queenslander was back in town, or this was the work of the Inquisition of the Strangest Truth. Reed knew Vic’s history, knew his vendetta, and was secure in the assumption that it was the latter. The cold war had turned hot. Soon, fiction would fly, and the whole occult landscape of Melbourne would be warped irrevocably…
But that was the future.

Reed shuddered, fear stinging his gut, and concentrated on the now.

The phone rang thrice.

“He’s fucking dead.”

Her tone was reserved, deadbeat, the tone of someone who had felt the crushing gears of fate.

“Soror Twist – I’m sorry. I tried to call him, but they’d messed with his story, and, I’m sorry, damn it, I’m really sorry,” said Reed. He was crying. Madly, he hoped that a customer wouldn’t stroll in to catch him like this.

“It’s – he knew it was coming, right? Kid had a knack for the cards. I’ve got to get out, Daniel. I can’t stay here. I was his partner… they’d get me and do worse. I’m just glad – just glad,” she said, and Reed heard sobbing. “I’m glad they didn’t get him. He was always good at escaping, but now – if the bastards haven’t, haven’t already – they’ll take Cherry. Can’t let that happen…”

“No, no, you can’t,” said Reed. His voice sounded lame, weak. Wounded. “Look, where are you going to go? Blackwater’ll be going down within hours. It won’t survive, not a death like that.”

“No,” said Twist. Reed could imagine her dark red hair, her eyes – stained with eyeliner, broken with grief. “Sunsorta’s safe, for now. I’ve got the thing protected – recently installed my entire mortgage details, right into the landscape. It won’t fall easily. Maybe, later, I’ll get him to Cardanea… but I don’t know. Got to get Cherry out.”

“Yeah. You know Cardanea’s always open to you… look, Twist, I know you’ve got to act now, but why don’t you come by the shop? Take a few shards. Take them all, for all I fucking care! Just make sure Cherry’s safe. Spend a shard on an untraceable, fictional personality – make her a Sunsortan princess. Somewhere on the beach. She’ll like that…”

“Yeah, she would,” said Twist. They both tried to smile. “I’ll be around, Daniel. Thank you – thank you. You’re a miserable old bastard, but you’ve always been good to us.”

“Don’t, uh, mention it. Good business and all. See you in a bit. Get Cherry first.”

“Yeah.”

She clicked off. Reed was left listening to the silence of the receiver for a few moments, and continued the work.

The signs were all very excited. EFTPOS ACCEPTED $10 MINIMUM assaulted Reed with questions when he reentered the bookstore. “What happened, boss? Will the bastard be okay? He’s hurt up bad… some bad people do this?”

Reed silenced him with a gesture. He felt exhausted. Didn’t get much sleep the night before, and now this…

“Little fact,” he said, speaking to EFTPOS ACCEPTED $10 MINIMUM quietly. “I’m going to have to put you for sleep. Just for a while. Just a little bit… your energies are needed elsewhere. Is that okay, little fact? I really need it.”

EFTPOS ACCEPTED $10 MINIMUM was shocked. He hadn’t been around that long, true – Reed had stubbornly refused to install an electronic transaction system for as long as he rationally could – but he hadn’t heard the master like this before. He knew what Reed needed, and felt a wild terror within him at the idea of being transformed, but knew enough not to argue.

“Anything you need, boss,” said EFTPOS ACCEPTED $10 MINIMUM. “Shall I ready the others?”

“Please…”

It was done. Reed let himself grin. EFTPOS ACCEPTED $10 MINIMUM was a strong little sign; one of his better creations. He knew what the thing must be feeling.

Reed unstuck the sign – the little being shrieked in pain – and removed the sacred blutack. He turned the sign over. It now read DANIEL REED HAS AN ELEVEN INCH PENIS. He placed the blutack on the original side, and replaced the scandalous sign upon the desk.

This was done for each of the signs. Reed knew none of the non-fictional people who wandered by the bookshop would notice.

PLEASE FEEL FREE TO HAVE A BROWSE :) became REED’S BOOKSHOP IS WHERE THE HEADQUARTERS OF THE INQUISITION ARE LOCATED.

TECHNICAL MANUALS AND EDUCATION BOOKS SECOND HAND became SOMETIMES I WONDER WHAT MAGIC IS REALLY ALL ABOUT.

CLOSED became DANGEROUSLY OPEN.

REED’S BOOKSHOP became REED’S BARBER.

PART-TIME STAFF WANTED APPLY WITHIN became nothing. It was dead.

The signs were few – as many as Reed could handle – but they were powerful, facts reversed, and they were enough. To the old bookseller’s satisfaction, he saw the space behind the counter blur, grow out of shape, and slowly – the full process would take an hour – become an identical physical copy of himself. This was Reed the Bookseller; a fictional creation that could be relied on to watch the shop while the real Reed was busy, say, cleaning up after a dead friend.

The customers – those wise enough to realise – would be insulted when they learnt that they were being served by a fictional character.

Fuck the customers.

Reed spent the hour watching the blur slowly take form and pondering over what to do with Vic’s body. He’d cleaned up the fictoplasm as best he could – stories tend to tarnish everything they come into contact with – and resolved to wait for the arrival of Twist before making a decision.

He checked Justin’s pulse again – just to make sure – and, satisfied with that, pulled the kid’s body out of kitchen, through the corridor and carried it Upstairs, with the exotic books. Later, he’d probably need to make a fictional copy to replace Justin for a smile while, but he had all day for that.

It was getting warm outside. The day, Reed realized with a sigh, had just begun.