Casework (Angelica's Apartment RP/Story post)

Angelica sighed as she puttered about in the kitchen. Alone at home, she was dressed for bed, pink panties hidden from the world only by a long comfortable t-shirt emblazoned with a "Property of Hogwart's athletics department" logo. Her hair was pulled back into a long ponytail, a few loose wisps framing a face without makeup, bare feet padded on the hardwood floor.

She double checked the pile of supplies between the teakettle on her cooking stove and the microwave, counted candles, checked the amounts in herb vials, made sure the knife was latched in its box, all ready to be drawn from her backpack, wherever she was. She turned to look around the kitchen; it was large, with a center island, a huge fridge, enough counter tops and shelf space to run a cooking class and of course, two stoves. One should never use the same pots and fire for cooking as for spell-crafting, purity was important. Unlike most witches, you wouldn't find a drying rack above the center island; she had her pantry for that. She grinned and went to the door at the far end of the kitchen, opening the door and taking a deep calming breath... she loved the smell in here. Here there were racks, common herbs drying in the cool air, dark cabinets and a fridge for delicate rare bits and components. And of course a spell-locked and bolted cabinet for items best not left to wander on their own. She carefully picked some herbs from the rack and brought them back into the kitchen, grinding them with her pestle and mortar.

She knew she was putting her task off and she hated that she was doing it. The scary Chinese girl deserved her answers... had engaged her services to find them. It wasn't her fault that she didn't know what cost Angelica would need to pay to get them. After almost a year, the nightmares had started again last week. The first came the night before the girl found her, had stunned her in Caprice by name dropping her father's name four times in rapid suggestion. It had gotten worse since, while fighting alongside Shao against her mortal enemy the infernal lieutenant had recognized Magyk, and lastly, collapsing in Caprice, overcome by a flashback after Robert’s... transformation.

She shuddered to think of it, the flashbacks scared her, and how it had affected her friends... Sabbath ran off... and Thea hadn't spoken to her the rest of the night after she had awoken her. It rattled them badly, although to be honest it was awhile before she was aware of what was going on around her. She hoped perhaps she was just reading too much into it.

She dismissed her gloomy thoughts as she entered the living room, idly trailing the hand not holding her mortar along the wall. It was an exterior wall, and she could feel the wards pulsing within it, they felt strong, all were holding well. The intricate silver rune-work along each window and door to the outside world binding the power of the ley line her apartment sat along into her primary defenses. As long as she was home, she was safe, invisible to mystic scrying, the hunt of the demon bloodhounds that pursued her, and well shielded from physical assault. Moving around the comfortable room, mostly dark woods and deep burgundies, the walls almost solid shelves covered in books, classic literature, reference books in dozens of languages, many no longer spoken, and here and there, thick spell books, their hand written pages bound in a variety of leathers from creatures both mundane and mystic... and sometimes sentient. She secured the room, closing the door over the plasma television, the cabinet blending in with the Victorian furniture, moving about she picked up any loose items, pens, pencils, the remote, placing them in her roll-top desk which she closed.

She stepped down the short hall to the front door, checking it was locked, she rolled up the rug just inside the door revealing the carved and inlayed pentagram beneath. She tossed the rug into the restroom off the hall and headed to her bedroom. She paused a moment, running a finger along the gris gris bag hanging on her door before speaking the password that allowed her to pass the ward into her inner sanctum, the small spark of spell energy as the door opened felt familiar, reassuring.

As Angelica stepped into the room the warm woods and muted colors of the rest of the apartment vanished, the wood of this room whitewashed, the walls papered a soft pastel pink. Like the main room the walls here were mostly shelving, but no classics here. Trashy romances, adventures and fiction series ruled here: Harry Potter, The Wizards of Waverly Place, The Hollows series, Anita Blake, worlds that took her away from the trauma of her Path. The rest of the shelving was covered in an explosion of pastels, a virtual shrine to Sanrio. Most of the last two years collection was displayed, some in glass cases. Hello Kitty smiled out from both the screensaver on the computer in the corner and the bed sheets, custom fitted for the four poster princess style bed. A life-size stuffed leopard sprawled across the bed as well, guarding the room. She stopped at her vanity and set her open cell phone down, pressing some buttons before picking up a pen and whispering to it, the pen listened, glowing slightly for several seconds. When she let go it floated in the air above the phone, positioned to drop and hit her autodial to 911 should she be unable to stop it in two hours.

Her safety checks complete, she ran out of excuses to delay the inevitable. She stepped back to the main room, setting the ward on her bedroom door in an automatic habit. Grabbing a pillow from the loveseat and the mortar from a side table where she had left it she gingerly settled into the center of her pentagram, wincing as she eased gently onto the pillow. A single word of Latin and there was a sudden, violent change in air pressure, like thunder without sound, the silver inlay of the pentagram seeming to glimmer as the circle was set. A glance at the circle showed it now existed in both the mortal and astral realms, a silver globe enclosing her, invisible to those without the gift. She set the mortar before her on the floor and brought her left hand up, her soulsword appearing in her outstretched hand. She lowered the sword and pricked her index finger on the right hand with it, the blade vanished. Angelica began to chant softly in ancient Atlantian, the chant rising in volume three times, each crescendo punctuated by a single drop of blood falling from her fingertip to the mixture in the mortar. Still chanting she began to grind the blood and herbs together, a red smoke rising, circling her, she breathed it in, deep long breaths; on the third breath her eyes rolled upward, seeking knowledge deep within her.

Angelica's body stayed perfectly still, voice still droning softly, making entreaties to gods of yore and legend, of protection, of the mind and memory, asking they help her, lead her, keep her sane. That if the sacrifice of her blood pleased them, to allow her to plumb her own thoughts without peril. She fell silent then, forcing herself to relax as she brought up what she remembered of Hell. The memories that had not been suppressed, the least painful, the ones from before her mind broke across Nergal's crucible. The ones that always began her nightmares...

She took the time to remember every detail, making them whole, bringing them to life. She remembered the smell first, sulfur and excrement, mixed with many more vile things, the taste in her mouth as she sputtered awake, face down in something wet, sticky, and unclean. She remembered the sounds of screams, of cruel voices, and the mockery of echoed speech that served as her father's voice. The feel of filthy claws tracing over her bare flesh and the pain of being yanked to a kneeling position gave her groggy eyes their first terrifying view of the grotesque horror of her birthright. The bloated mass of flesh that spoke so sweetly at first, the constantly shifting visage that spoke from one mouth, then several as they formed and vanished within the shifting flesh covered with organs, mouths, eyes and glistening pseudopods and pustules. She remembered her short lived feelings of triumph when she managed to spit into the closest eye, refusing what he offered, and the despair that followed her father’s pronouncement of her fate.

As the demons closed on her, she spotted one to the side, a commander, one that did not seem native to the Netherworld, one whose aura matched that of the Chinese girl, an aura of Elysian energies mixed with a mortal. This would be her, the one she sought. Angelica concentrated on her and the scene slowed, her thoughts zooming in on her in every detail, the expanded awareness of the spell allowing her to penetrate and study her, the thoughts of her showing on the auras of the demons she commanded, Her, she thought, I need to see everything I remember of her. The spell took hold of her waking dream, this nightmare, sorting through the deepest recesses of her fractured memories and begun dragging them up from the depths her psyche hid them.

They flooded her mind, hard fast flashes of pain and torment, every slash of the girl’s bladed lash was felt as fully now as then, every moment she directed a demon or team of them in her torture, her humiliation, every time she offered her release if she gave in and surrendered her humanity. Angelica wailed in despair as the feelings and emotions washed through her, over her, memories getting clouded but no less intense as her mind became a wash of pain, of blood, of sickening noises and smells. She screamed loud and long, her throat raw and hoarse, clawing at the inside of her mental walls as she relived torment after torment. At least, it seemed from where Angelica was seeing it.

From outside she was still sitting in the circle, eyes now straight ahead, wide, catatonic. Hair matted to her with sweat and her body jerking with spasms of remembered pain, mouth shut, only the occasional whimper coming from dry cracked lips, the time ticking by as the sun set. An hour went by, a trickle of blood running from her nose and across her lip. Thirty minutes later there was a loud crack as her weakened clavicle re-fractured under the stress, Angelica didn't cry out, not outside where it could be heard. Soon she began mumbling, not whole words, but trying to form them, over and over, a short phrase. The mumbling became almost recognizable, but slurred, the phrase in Latin. Then suddenly she gasped, taking in a deep breath for the first time in nearly two hours, then she spoke.

"Inquam Accredo, Numquam Abdico"

Her body arched back and she screamed at the top of her lungs, the scream the only sound accompanying an explosion of fire and force that blasted outward silently, the circle extinguishing as the fire swept over it, the force knocking over the reading table, the lamps, battering the book covers safe in their shelves. Even the gris gris bag swung on it's nail. As the fire and wind died Angelica was gone, her dark skinned and horned counterpart sat in the circle, panting, shivering, and crying. Magyk took several long moments to catch her breath, wiping her nose with her tail as she crawled, then stood, shaking to enter the bedroom. The ward let her pass with the password. She reached out, caught the pen as it fell toward the phone and grabbed the diary on the bed stand. She began to write, quickly, obsessively, hands shaking, everything she could remember. Magyk would not let Angelica have suffered in vain. She was still frantically writing almost an hour later when the phone rang, snapping it up she answered the inquiry with a cold monotone before hanging up.

"Sorry, there's no Angel here right now."