A Smarter Plan - for @verynormalturnipseller

[fifthofthecovenant]

More power wasn't the answer. He realized this after he got the power from his father and the ressurrection still failed. It was something he wasn't doing right.

Chase didn't stalk the Ipswitch boys to try and take their power. He stalked them until he found their semi-secret little spell chamber, broke through their pathetic wards, and read all their books and records. He needed a proper spell for this. He just didn't know what it was.

He didn't get the spell from their books, but he did get a lead. Darklings, the spirits he summoned, could be made tangible and permanent, he learned. It had been done exactly three times in the boys' family records: once in medieval Europe in the 1400s, once in New England before the civil war, and once in fucking... San Francisco, almost a decade ago. There wasn't much to go on, but he thought he could probably use the same kind of magic to sniff out a former spirit in a crowd if he had to.

So he books himself plane tickets to California, hires himself a car once he gets there, and starts driving, with a little locator spider sitting on the dash, scurrying left and right as it seeks similar summoning magic to itself, acting like a compass. Wherever this former darkling is, Chase is going to find him.

And then-- he's not sure yet. Maybe dissect him.

Comments

[fifthofthecovenant]

So his memory from being alive was intact. That wasn't necessarily going to be the case, but it's a relief that it is. "Who was he? To you?" Chase starts with. "Why did he bring you back?"

[verynormalturnipseller]

Ying-ge is a raw wound, and the probing does nothing to endear the witch to him. But maybe he can make the necessary point again. "He thought this was better than me being dead. It's not. Whoever it is, let them go."

[fifthofthecovenant]

Chase grits his teeth, then spits out, "It's my parents. Okay? They're dead and I have to fix it." Because it's his fault. All his fault. He has to make it right, even if it kills him instead, because it's his fault. "And you still didn't answer my question."

[verynormalturnipseller]

He softens, but he doesn't budge. There are only so many ways to say stop, though, and he's already tired of repeating himself. "We grew up together. Not related, but same apartment building, my grandmother went to the same church as his... family." Both their home lives were a bit complicated, strengthening the bond between the misfit children. "Same class as my older sister. She's the one who could keep up with him. I just tagged along." There's already a faint rasp in his voice. This is more than he's spoken in... years, maybe.

[fifthofthecovenant]

"He must have cared about you a lot to bring you back," Chase says, almost a protest. "That's a lot of magic. A lot of power." A lot of years off of his own life. Unless he found a work-around for that too, somehow.

But even if he had, no one would go through that just to say they could. Even Chase isn't that arrogant, and he knows what he is.

[verynormalturnipseller]

While he suspects his sister and the challenge of it all were bigger factors, he can't pretend not to have been extremely aware of that fact in the years since. "Another reason I'd rather he hadn't done it." Without paying that toll, would Ying-ge have been better protected?

[fifthofthecovenant]

"How much longer did he live? After he finished the spell?" Chase asks, but only after a pause, and actually weighing whether he needs to know.

He does need to know. He's okay with dying in this, he's kind of half planning on it, but knowing for sure would be better than just thinking about it. And he might as well get the worst of the questions about this guy's past out of the way first.

[verynormalturnipseller]

"It wasn't why he died." He suspects now that Ying-ge was in much deeper than he understood, maybe even than his sister ever knew. "But he wasn't as strong after that. It didn't help, at least."