Julie Dawson - Water is Thicker than Blood

The crowd grew quiet as the implication of his statement took root.

“You mean like in the old days? Dig a well and have your own water?” asked someone.

“Just be able to drink water out the ground? Is that possible?”

“Maybe even go swimming and not get sick?”

“Yes,” said Archmage Hex. “Yes.”

“Praise be to the Lord!” shouted someone.

“Amen!”

“God bless you!”

Archmage Hex smiled. Rue thought he looked sad. Or maybe he was just tired. “It will be a while still before we can safely start up the purifier,” he said. “But until then, I’ll make sure future testing is done at a more…reasonable hour so as to not alarm you all.”

“Master Dunwich,” ask Archmage Hex as Joseph opened the door. He walked pass Joseph without waiting to be invited in.

“Archmage! To what do I owe the honor of you visiting our home? Might you want something to drink?”

“Is your mother here?”

“No, no she is not. She went with Ms. Rue across the way to the market.”

Hex folded his arms in front of him. “I am told that we have you to… thank… for the breakthrough with the generator.”

“Well, I don’t believe I deserve too much credit. They done did the heavy lifting. I just was able to offer that final little push is all.”

“Little push? Hm. You and I have different views on the matter. It would have taken months, possibly years, to channel that much arcane energy into the structure. It was an impressive feat of magic for one so young in the craft.”

“Well, you flatter me, Archmage.”

“It’s not flattery.”

“Archmage, I don’t believe I understand—”

“Don’t. Just don’t. There is only one way a piss ant wannabe con artist like you could have managed a feat like that.”

“Sir, it is impolite to insult a man in his own home.”

“It isn’t an insult when it is true. Human sacrifice is prohibited by the Circle!” Joseph made a gesture as if to deny the charge. “Don’t play me for a fool, Dunwich. I’m not some simple-minded commoner easily confused by your charming ways. You think you are the first power-hungry punk to take short cuts? Think you are in control of whatever power you called to? It takes years to master even the simplest of talismans to invoke the netherworld safely. Who did you summon? Astaroth? Vapula? Barbas?” Joseph looked down at his feet and shuffled involuntarily in place. “Did you even stop to consider the repricussions of your actions?”

“You mean helping save people’s lives by giving them clean water?”

“I mean the long-term repricussions of your actions. The potential dangers of starting up the generator before the full wards and protections were in place. We could have experienced an arcane backlash that blew up the Circle! It could have imploded under its out output. Did you think of the danger of people now knowing that we can create these kind of generators? I have a meeting with Samedi today about this. What should I tell him if he wants generators for every district?”

“The Baron ain’t above a few people dying for the betterment of Nola. Tell him the truth.”

“Tell him the truth? You are completely mad.”

“Why not tell him the truth? He’s a man himself of occult-leanings. He’d surely understand the neccessity of a single sacrifice for the good of hundreds of people. Or maybe I’ll tell him myself if you disinclined to do it.”

Hex took two quick steps toward Joseph and leaned into him until there was only a hair’s breath between them. “I can’t do anything to you formally right now, because doing so would threaten the Circle with infighting that we can ill afford right now. You managed to convince the right people on the council that this was a good idea. Good show. I underestimated how conniving you really were. But know this. If you so much as sneeze in Samedi’s direction without my permission, Lady Rae may be alerted to the presence of a bokor in Bywater. And then you can show off to the Voodoo Queen just how much power you think you have.”

Joseph swallowed reflexively and stepped away from Hex. “Ain’t nothing bad can happen from this.”

“I’m sure Madame Curie thought the same thing when she carried those glowing tubes in her pocket.”

“Who?”

“Marie Curie.” Joseph shrugged. “The mother of radioactivity? We have a library at the Circle. Have you never bothered to use it?”

Joseph rolled his eyes.

“This is the point, Joshua! You have no sense of history. It never occured to Madame Curie that her research would one day lead to nuclear weapons that would destroy the world. The history of humanity is littered with people who, blinded by ambition, did not fully appreciate the scope of dangers they unleashed upon the world.”

“It would seem to me that not everyone at the Circle is as paranoid as you about this.”

“That is because, like you, they are so enamoured with the power they have gained through their minimal efforts that they fail to understand the powers that have been lost. Our Circle sits on the site of a once magnificant temple of occult knowledge. It was recognized throughout the world. Magicians worked wonders there that we cannot begin to fathom and may never understand. Because after the bombs fell, people needed someone to blame. And their natural fears turned on those they least understood. The original temple was burned to the ground, as was everyone in it.”

“So how did it come to be that a bunch of plain folk with sticks and torches kill them?”

Hex shook his head. “You have no understanding of history. You have no understanding of the Inquisition. The old witchcraft trials in Salem. You are ignorant, and you wear your ignorance with a smugness I have seen on the faces of dozens of fools like you. Fools who think they are so much smarter than everyone else. Fools who think the rules don’t apply to them. You took a dangerous short cut to power and temporal fame that cost someone his life and cost you your soul.”

“If it makes you feel better, Darwin , I didn’t technically offer a human for sacrifice. I just performed the deed for someone else. I may be a murderer, but my soul don’t just yet belong to no demon.”

“Wait? What did you do?”

“Archmage!” said Lula as she and Rue entered the house. “Ain’t this a blessed surprise.”

“Madame,” Hex offered a short bow to Joseph’s mother.

“You a blessing visiting us this day. You staying for some lunch?”

“No, I was just leaving. My business with Joshua is resolved…for now.”

“Don’t feel like you need to rush off on our account. We got plenty from the market. Even got some nice fish I’m gonna fry up with some okra Rue grew in her garden.”

“Do stay,” added Rue. “You look like you been running yourself ragged. Rest a bit and let’s put some meat on your bones. Like they don’t feed you up at that Circle.”

“You ladies are very kind, but I have a meeting with Baron Samedi. And you know it is not wise to keep the Baron waiting.” He looked at Joseph and scowled. “We’ll talk more later.”

“I’ve no doubt we will, Archmage. No doubt at all.”

Post-Apocalyptic Blues takes place fifty years after World War III in the city of New Orleans, or Nola as it is called by the locals. Ruled over by the enigmatic Baron Samedi, New Orleans struggles to rebuild while defending itself from slavers, raiders, internal tribal squabbles, and an angry environment that has been trying to swallow it whole long before the first bombs fell.