seymoure

Chapter 55

The Company You Keep

In the distant past, before the small bang, much less the big one, there was a board meeting.

After a short discussion about the lack of the existence of either coffee or doughnuts, that was incidentally interrupted by a heated plea about lox and bagels, the rules of the coming universe had to be decided upon.

This was the negotiation that pounded out a shaky compromise about physical laws changing at the sub-atomic level, but no one even thought of the term “Quantum Psychics” much less what the plane of those things larger than what the physical laws would effect might be termed.

An intern suggested “Bob” but was roundly laughed out of the conference room. Which was, as a matter of basest fact, existence.

Then came the talks that would get most heated and never truly settled. This was one that would forever be subject to those who stepped over the lines in hopes of changing everything.

Perimeters of dominion were being set.

The animals wanted the forests and the oceans and everything in them.

The insects were having none of that and made an alliance with the Dark Ones to have only slightly limited reign of that which could not be defined by the others. Shadows, dark places, dismissed areas were all to be the sphere in which to scavenge.

The truth was that everywhere fell under that description at some time, but those who might have objected were to naïve to know with whom they were mediating with.

Now, as to what could be taken.

The world would for all time be full of carrion or carrion to be.

No one thinks of themselves thus, and therefore the scroungers would have the upper hand.

The Dark Ones needed nothing to survive. That was part of what made them Dark, and so very powerful. They were powerful and gifted with immortality and could wait for the moment that would give them the chance to do whatever it was that they wanted to do.

They crisscrossed the globe hoping to find moments of horrendous agony and elation to feed their need to feel. They had, now and then, found something so awful that it made them feel. Then they had to deny they felt that, and so they laughed. They converted their pity, their sorrow into gales of misery invoked laughs.

But, like any junky, they always looked for the next, the better high. (Really they looked for a repeat of the first high, but it would never be as good again, and that’s what makes them hopeless)

When they did get hold of the corporality, they had to mold it into something exciting for them. They were like children given a movie studio for a week. They could make anybody do anything, but only till the grown up found out about it and made the stop and eat their oatmeal.

The deal they would make is that if Harriett assassinated the 3 people they chose, in a set time frame, they would return the world that was before the kid stumbled into Morgan LeFey’s lair and began mucking everything up.

If she failed then everything would continue on as it was at this moment. The people she killed would have been killed by Harriet Dante, the completeness of reality would be molded by their warped sense of chaos and left that way until someone more powerful that they came along.

And, by the way, that could take hundreds of years.

Harriett Dante knew that they had translated the whole thing into terms they thought she could understand, but it came across a bit too much like an episode of “The Office.”

Also, they informed her, everyone in Australia was now a zombie. And that would stay that way if she failed.

They thought, “This should be fun!”

Harriett did not share their keenness.

Link to Chapter 1
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