In which Noir eats an apple, learns what is going wrong at the crossroads and decide to help a dead girl remember.
The four of them sat at Xia's dining table. Noir took the opportunity to get some food into himself, as long as he remembered to do so. Xia looked lost, and he felt responsible for that- he hadn't yet had the chance to explain fully what she'd agreed to. Meanwhile, Kyle kept that Dragon mask on. The Ghede and Kyle exchanged verbal challenges.
"Your kin forget justice, Nephillim."
"And yours forget whose world this belongs to, Ghede."
Noir chewed on a apple while Kyle in his Draco uniform argued with the death spirit. The necromancer decided it was better to get something inside him before hearing what this Ghede was going on about. And of course, he still had to determine what caused Xia, newly undead as she was, to miss the exact cause of her death.
"Bah. We of the Ghede clan have lived on this continent longer than you humans have bothered to despoil it."
"We of the Neven take no part in that accusation of the unseelie court. Ours is to reclaim our task and fix what was lost in the Dimension War, not fix what little claims made by a forgotten spirit-"
"Little? We Ghede walk the paths of Death, and take upon the very words of Azrael-"
Noir lifted a hand and let lose a part of his inner energies, enough to let it ripple out and define itself. It was a small part of a poltergeist he'd collected, bonded to his astral self. His third eye, the projection of his own personal energies. The tiny ghosting screamed and hissed, dimming lights and tossing objects around.
Kyle and Ghede stopped their arguing and glanced at Noir. Xia's eyes widened, affected by the tiny geist's presence.
"What was that?" Xia asked. Her voice had lost the emotion it held earlier.
"You can see it can't you?" Noir smirked. "Many dead things are bonded to me. They do me favors if I ask them nicely enough, and I do as they ask me. I am their servant."
Xia took that in for a moment, then she said, "why did this spirit call you a, what was it?"
"Bokor?"
"Yes, that."
The Ghede put a slightly purple hand under its more human looking chin. "Because he is Bokor, just he is a Mage, and you vampyr."
"Excuse me?" Xia put a hand in her mouth, as if to check for fangs.
"Ugh. Wrong meaning, " Noir interjected. "Vampyr means walking dead in the original folk tales. Sucking blood and all that other stuff is Brom Stoker's novel."
"What about Zombies?" Kyle asked, his tone curious.
"You seem to be knowledgeable, yet you don't know these distinctions yourself?" Noir answered. "These were the basic things I learned when I first-" Noir caught himself, and decided better than to explain his own past.
"We grew up understanding the basics about ancestor spirits and warnings about Jiangshi. I... I never thought there was a proper distinction between Vampires and everything else." Xia looked at the Ghede. "Let alone a spirit of this sort...?"
"Vampyr. Not vampire." Noir emphasized the last syllable. "Dead people come back as Vampyr, sometimes without any help from people like me. Bokors, or whatever you want to call us, we know how to cheat that process. We can channel the paths the psychopomps tread. We can restart the heart and ask the question. You remember the question don't you Xia?"
"Um... yes... I remember saying yes..."
"I believe you were going to explain yourself, Ghede." Kyle asked, changing the subject.
The Ghede glared, then rested his two purplish hands on the table. "There has been many wrongs committed against the dead and the Paths they walk here. Guide the dead do me. These paths are being twisted and taken wrong. Too many are dead in the wrong ways. Their spirits have been wronged. Their problematic auras have been shifted onto me, I take their pains to let them continue on."
The Ghede tilted its head and looked at Xia. "She has been touched by this wrong, too."
Kyle just kept silent, his many-soul eyes unnerving Noir. Noir still didn't have a point of reference for Kyle, this Draco or the mask. And he didn't have time to get answers.
"Yes. She has." Noir put a hand on Xia. "I need you to remember what happened. Ghede is a loa, and all Ghedes know the dead. If dead spirits can't find rest here, then things are going to escalate. This wrongness will manifest in all aspects of life. It will replicate itself-"
"And be made legion." Kyle added. "This is a crossroads isn't it?"
Noir nodded. "What happens here flows out. Paths cross, if things are corrupted here, like a river, it flows to the next place. More and more will be tainted by it. This sort of pollution taints humanity, makes them act more like it. So, I need Xia to remember- this killer wants to trigger more corruption. More spiritual pollution."
Xia sighed. "I don't remember. I told you that already."
"Your body didn't witness it, but you did, Xia." Noir sighed. "Look, I can touch the spirit that is attached to your corpse- that's the reason why you are having trouble feeling your emotions, or why you feel connected to me. My heartbeat is maintaining the connection between your dead body and your spirit. The two are separated, but I can wake its memories of last night."
Xia looked at her brother. Kyle took off his mask, the many souls underneath being quieted in Noir's senses.
"You've always wanted a chance to help serve the Task, sis. Here it is."
Xia nodded. Noir closed his eyes. Time to make a dead girl remember.
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