Assumption Ch. 13

Chapter Thirteen

The rushed pace of the Matron's deed meant it hadn't taken up too much time, but it did put me dangerously close to being late for work. I rushed through my normal morning routine to make up for it, but just as I was getting out of the shower, I heard my servant's voice in my ear.

"May I summon you?" she asked.

Believe it or not, there was still a responsible office-worker inside me, but when faced with the choice of going to work or getting another lesson from Ambree, it was no contest. "Yes," I answered, "but give me ten minutes."

She agreed to my terms and I used the time to get dressed and call in sick to work.

What followed ten minutes later felt no different than being called by one of my masters, and when the fire settled, I was sitting next to Ambree on a bench in a plaza surrounding a large stone fountain. A neatly folded blanket had been placed on the seat to my left. I took the hint and used it to cover my nudity.

Under my feet, a familiar design had been drawn in chalk. Just as the Princess's circle had been the reverse of the Matron's, Ambree's circle was the reverse of the Follower's.

The symbols that were being used on me, or more typically against me, had caught my interest from the beginning. Watching the Follower's manipulations and hearing her story about how she got involved with the business of entrapping demons gave me a small amount of insight as to how the big circle worked. It was a tool for summoning and containing me, but also had some properties that helped my masters use me to perform rituals.

On the other hand, the smaller versions were still a complete mystery to me. They possessed the same ability to summon, but I could move freely beyond their borders even though they seemed to have their own way of containing me by changing my state of mind. I decided to try to get Ambree to give me a quick bonus lesson.

I pointed below my seat. "When the others summoned me, they had these circles drawn on their hands. They showed them to me, and it made me feel numb and empty like I couldn't think for myself."

She looked over her left shoulder at me. "These little circles are very weak. They cannot trap you like the one in the ritual hall, but they do two things well enough; summon and protect themselves from the summoned. Marking your body with one is like an anagogic loophole. If you cannot harm the circle, and I am the circle, you cannot harm me.

The change you feel has nothing to do with that. They have a deed for you to accomplish, and you are their servant. You become receptive to their command when they desire it. Pretty soon even that bond will not be able to control you. You are very close now."

I suddenly felt lucky that I got any time to myself at all. If it was that easy to boss me around, they could just as well have me living in their homes, cooking and cleaning for them. "Why do they keep sending me back, then? The Matron could just stamp one of those circles on herself and keep me at her heel. Wouldn't that be easier?"

"Summoning is not teleporting. You are being projected. It is a more involved process and does not effectively move you from one point to another."

That explanation only raised more questions. "So, I'm still back at my apartment?"

"Yes and no. You have been pulled here, but there is a force pulling you back. The circle holds you. Do you know what a paddle ball is?"

I nodded.

She held up her left hand. "This is the paddle, your home." Then her right hand. "This is the circle. You are the ball." She plucked an imaginary object out of her left hand with her right. "That is a summoning."

"So when the summoner releases me, I just snap back?"

"Being released is one way. The death of one of the summoners will have the same effect. If either of you were to move too far from the circle you were summoned to, you will be sent back also. When your masters draw one on themselves, it lets them move around with you. Time is also a factor. It takes energy to keep the projection in place. When my ability to hold on gives out, you will be released. For most people, that is only a couple of hours."

Ambree was not much of a conversationalist. She used the obvious segue to change the subject to the task ahead of us before I could ask any more questions. "Since there is a time limit, we should get started. I brought you here to expand on what I have taught you. Do you see that man over there?" She pointed to a person in a three-piece suit seated at a bench on the other side of the fountain.

"The businessman?" I asked.

"Yes. Listening to me is easy because of the bond we share, but you can do it to anyone. I want you to listen to him. Try to find his thoughts."

I stared at the man as he stared at nothing and did my best to put him in my mind, but I felt no more connected to him than to the bench he was sitting on. "I'm not getting anything. What exactly am I focusing on?"

"Focus on the person and listen to the sounds that do not belong, like I taught you."

It was hard to do on the spot, in the daylight, with Ambree nearby breathing and judging, but I did my best to shut out all the noise going on around me and listen for the silence underneath. For quite a while, it eluded me, and I understood why Ambree had chosen someone that was sitting down. Everyone else had somewhere to be. They would be gone before I could stumble my way to the next step which, after more than twenty long minutes, I did.

Immersed in the sound of silence, I stared at the man across the plaza. The vision of my eyes became the vision of my mind and soon words began to register in my ears just like when I had finally locked on to my instructor. His voice spoke in subconscious shorthand, "work -- what am I going to do? Karma -- no sleep -- why? -- mail -- dogs" There was more, much more.

"I can hear him," I told Ambree.

"Good. Now try and change his thoughts. Pull them to your own."

I'd had no luck with changing the random sounds I heard when I was alone, and I wasn't optimistic about my ability to affect this man. The more I tried, the harder it became to keep focused. Several times I had to stop to look for the sound of his thoughts again. It wasn't until I had given up altogether and resigned myself to just practice listening that I had a breakthrough.

Ambree made it seem like I could will his mind in one direction, but it was much more subtle than that. The more I listened, the more I heard, and the more I heard the more I became aware of the connection between us that allowed me to hear his thoughts. It was almost tangible. The best way I can describe it is to compare it to a ribbon; a delicate piece of silk that dangled from him to me, floating in the space between us. With my mind, I could take hold of this ribbon and pull it. As I pulled it toward me, his thoughts became more like my own, and as I let it go, they returned to their normal state.

"What do I do with this?" I asked.

"He is yours now. Make him do something."

I had no desire to become the Matron and create a slave or another whatever-it-was-I-was-supposed-to-be, but I was curious about the extent of my control. I didn't need him to serve me, but if I could make him do something simple, like stand up and walk over to us, that would be an incredible trick. I concentrated on his need to cross the plaza and pulled.

At first, I did hear his thoughts changing. He had been content to sit down, maybe forever. There was something he was trying to work through, and he needed time alone with his thoughts. Slowly, the idea of getting up and taking a walk started to appeal to him. My manipulation was working. Just the idea of it was thrilling. I kept pulling, ever so gently, and finally, he stood up.

As soon as he was on his feet, his thoughts changed back. He didn't want to stand up and didn't understand why he had. His mind raced, and he sat back down. That's when I felt a peculiar feeling. He was pulling back. Before I could adapt, I lost my hold.

I started over again, finding his voice, letting it grow stronger in my head, and gripping his ribbon once more. He fought it now, actively. It was like a tug of war. I would pull him one way and he would pull back the other. He was getting angry now, I could hear it.

"He's fighting me," I told Ambree.

"Don't let him," she answered. "You are stronger. Prove it to him."

I channeled all the strange energy that had been pooling up inside me since my life as a demon began, and I, for lack of a better metaphor, yanked.

Pulling thoughts with the ribbon is like pulling a package around by its string. If you pull at the right angle and speed you can drag it around wherever you please, but if you pull the wrong way, or too fast, the knot comes undone. That is what happened when I yanked. The ribbon fell apart and I lost my connection, but he didn't just go back to dwelling on his stressors. He stood up, looked around, and started screaming. I hadn't just unraveled the ribbon. I had unraveled the man.

People stared, concerned, as he ran up to an elderly woman carrying a shopping bag and grabbed her. He screamed in her face about some perceived disrespect. She panicked and tried to get away, but he held fast.

A couple of men crossed the plaza to try and rescue her, shouting the whole way. When they reached the scene, the businessman threw the woman at one of them and sucker-punched the other. All three of them fell to the ground while their attacker raged on.

I concentrated and found him again only to discover his thoughts were no longer words and phrases but unintelligible moans and grunts. Scrambling, I felt around for his ribbon, hoping there was a way I could tie it back together, but there was simply nothing there.

He jumped on the man he hit, pinning him to the ground and punching him relentlessly in the stomach. Everyone in the plaza was aware of what was happening now. Some spectated while some hid. Others approached as if to help. The sound of sirens could be heard from somewhere off in the distance.

A man in a tracksuit arrived behind the pair, grabbing the crazed man and yanking him backward off of his victim. He lost his balance as he pulled and fell. In an instant, the good deed was rewarded with violence. The businessman jumped on top of him next and began clawing at his face like a wild animal.

People fled as a police car drove up onto the concrete bed surrounding the fountain with lights flashing. A skinny young man in a freshly pressed uniform climbed out, shouting directives for the attack to stop. There was no indication that he was heard. The officer drew his sidearm and gave another command, this time threatening to use force, if necessary.

The businessman howled and stood up, abandoning the man he had been clawing, who was now motionless. He was instructed by the officer to put his hands on his head, but he was in no mood to comply. Instead, he charged, emitting a war cry that would have startled even a hardened soldier.

What happened next was not unpredictable. After three loud bangs, my test subject fell. When he hit the ground, I felt the wind get knocked out of me as if it was me that had just been shot.

At first, I thought I had done something wrong. I had lost control and accidentally broken this man's mind. What was worse, I feared that in order to learn how to perform the technique better, I would need more practice and that easily meant more such mistakes. That was difficult to accept. Maybe if I was more skilled, I could have stopped what I had started.

"Could I have saved him?" I asked Ambree.

Her eyes were fixed on the body on the ground. "No. Once you broke him, he was irreparable. In that state, they will fight to the death, no matter how long that takes. This one is lucky he did not have to suffer long."

He had suffered long enough by my account. What I had just witnessed did not look like a pleasant way to spend your last few minutes of life. "What exactly did I just do?" I asked.

"Sanity is a flimsy thing. The power you wield over others is your manipulation of it. You can warp it to make someone believe what you desire them to or you can strip it away and watch them degenerate into a violent savage. That is what you did to him."

"You let me do that?" I challenged.

"Yes."

Guilt and fear turned to anger in me. It was worse than that. She knew this is what was going to happen. "You wanted me to." I tried to meet her eyes, but she was still looking across the plaza. The officer gripped the skin on the back of his neck tightly as he looked down at the businessman's body. "Why? Couldn't you have just told me what would happen if I pulled too hard?"

"This is a lesson that can only be learned one way. You had to feel it, right up until the moment he snapped and after. Next time you will be able to tell the difference." There was no emotion in her voice.

"You could have warned me."

Ambree shook her head. "If I warned you, you would not have done it."

She was partially right. This man didn't deserve what happened to him, but I wasn't as uncompromising as I had been at the start of my journey. "I would've picked a better target."

"You are mistaken. No part of you is willing to pick a sacrifice. You would not have found a criminal. You would not have found a terminally ill senior citizen who is suffering and ready to part this world. You would have chosen no one at all. You would have gotten up and walked away.

"Despite what your leash-bearers and I have done to try and snap you out of it, your humanity still drags behind you. You needed to destroy that man, that man, right there, who did nothing to deserve his fate and feared nothing more than his own death. It was necessary for your own good." Ambree turned to face me and when her eyes met mine, I felt a chill run through me. There was nothing in them that resembled sympathy.

I was stunned. She had not only wanted me to push someone over the edge, but she intentionally selected someone who didn't deserve it. This person was dealing with intense stress, and that was exactly what she needed. She knew he would be easy to push over the edge and I would have to deal with my role in that. I didn't know what to say.

She looked away again, shifting her gaze to the ground in front of her. "I will accept whatever punishment you feel I deserve."

It was hard not to feel betrayed, but the thought of discipline would never have crossed my mind. Ambree had made herself my servant, but I didn't know what it meant to have someone serve me. I saw her more as my teacher, and for that reason, it was hard for me to do anything but look up to her. "Did your last master punish you?" I asked.

"Yes," she answered plainly.

I didn't ask any more questions. That was as much as I wanted to know about the subject that day. I made her release the summoning. There was nothing else to discuss and nothing else for me to learn there. I needed time to think about what had just happened.

Ambree may have been my servant, but she served the demon she wanted me to be, not the demon I was. I had no doubt there were other surprises waiting for me down the road.