Backslider

Chapter 2

Reflections

"So take your time
I wonder if you're here just to use my mind
Don't take it slow
You know I've got a place to go
You always do that
Something I'm not sure of
But just for today
Let go and slide away"

-The Verve

Jonathan Mercier flounced his way out the front door in a very flouncing manner. Actually, Jon had no idea what flouncing was, but didn't really care. The few minute setback with the doctor delayed him considerably. A few minutes, in fact, which he then considered just to make sure. Walking absentmindedly, he withdrew a thin flat slip of metal and flipped open the cover. To most people, he might have looked rather odd.

For you see, although Mr. Mercier looked respectable enough, handsome enough, and normal enough, there was something very much amiss, which, no doubt, those around him may have recognized. First of all, he was walking very slowly. Secondly, he seemed totally preoccupied with the blue screen resting in his palm. Busily tapping at the pad, he took no notice of the three times he should have been pasted to the grill of a bus, the angry obscenity of drivers suddenly screeching to a halt to wait for his leisurely stroll across the intersection, and the gum now firmly in place on his new shoes. It was almost as though he had not the slightest idea of the annoyance he was now causing to those around him, with the squeek-squeek-squeek accompanying the footfalls of his latest footwear. Actually, he was very much aware both of his behavior and the annoyance it was causing.

He liked to be annoying.

He especially felt it was a nice warm-up for important business meetings, like the one he was now making his way towards. Glancing at the blinking clock chirruping cleverly, he noticed just how late he was. Very. So, with hardly a thought, Jonathan leapt into the next store. Stashing his metal pad, he was disappointed at the sight that met his eyes. He had walked straight into a trap. A deadly one at that. He had entered that vast schism between the worlds of both Public Decency and Public Humiliation. He had entered The Gap.

"Insufferable gits," he said to no one in particular. The sooner I get this over with, the sooner this'll all be over. He thought too soon, for at the very moment, a flock of creatures closely resembling a group of Feathered Lurcasian Payks he had encountered a few days earlier in Bolivia swooped in from several feet to the left of the door. It is worth noting that Lurcasian Payks, particularly the feathered variety as reported in Kiggle Lienham's Encyclopedia of Really Vile Creatures and How to Best Exterminate Them, closely resemble very large polka-dotted camels, though with very large teeth, and a body odor like that of a thousand desiccated corpses. In this case, the only difference would be that the body odor was actually Kevin Clean's new Eau de Toilette, entitled "Oblivious."

"You got here just in time!" one harpy exclaimed.

"Quickly! Quickly! Out of that... thing you're wearing!" screeched another.

"Have you seen our recent supply of Polysynth Neckties?!? Just follow me!" one more added with a crazed cackle.

"I just wanted to... use your bathroom!" Jonathan screamed, shoving two or three about ten feet to his right, and another four feet into the air. He would have darted out the door at that moment and found another way to the meeting, had it not been blocked by some hefty men ("Are they men?" he thought with a shudder). Not to waste any more time, Mercier kicked open the door to the restroom and slammed it shut with a grunt of relief. "Now, on to the good stuff." Looking into his reflection, he pulled the thin branch of wood from his pocket, and put it to his head, mumbling "Proplaeum!" As he did so, his reflection began to shimmer. With a hiss, fizzle, and bang (in that precise order), Jonathan found himself standing on a table.

It wasn't a very nice table. Neither was the bar in which it sat. This is definitely the place. The bar was actually quite nasty. It was stuffy, filled, with smoke, and filled with jazz music. It was also, coincidentally, the exactly right place.

"I wouldn't be caught dead--" he mumbled.

"What's that?" said an obscenely tall, obscenely muscular hunk of mass directly behind him. Lifting Jon about four feet into the air, Jon screeched.

"What the f--" Jon exclaimed.

"-- am I doing here?" the mass finished with a wide toothy smile as he rotated Jon 180 degrees.

"Sam... you're an absolute bastard."

"Now, now. Not in front of the muggles." Sam replied, "I've got a room in the back."

The room was, in fact, a closet. Or, at least, it may as well have been, it was so cramped with a 400 pound beast named Samuel Christophell ("on a warm day, no less," Jonathan thought).

"Why the Gap?"

"What's that?" Sam replied pretending not to have heard.

"The Gap. Why set up a Propylon in a place widely recognized as the Black Hole of All Despairing and foremost cause of modern social degradation?" Mercier ranted.

"WELL, I THOUGHT IT WOULD BE OBVIOUS!!" Sam boomed.

"Samuel James Christophell, would you care to enlighten us?" Mercier stood poking Samuel in the chest. He looked rather ridiculous; as Jon had to look straight up to even see the man's face. He didn't seem to care.

Picking up a nearby lamp, and crushing it in a mess of crackle of flame and metal with his fist, he breathed, "Because it's safer."

"Ah."

"Look, Mercier. We can't afford to be careless anymore. The Department of Mysteries has noticed a rise in Dark activity these days, especially in London. You know as well as I that these people can be anyone... and no one would have the slightest clue who they are until they've cursed you 'til you can't walk," the giant whispered, "You know as well as I that... we can't be too careful is all."

"But a Gap? On a sales weekend?"

Sam Christophell laughed, "You also know that one of the only ways to defeat a powerful Dark is with Dark forces of your own..."

"£29.99 for a hideous pair of pants? They should make that an Unforgivable."

"Damned right. By the way, what'd you do with the doctor?" Sam asked.

"Those classes came in handy. Well, at least we learned a few tricks. I knocked him out, then used Roseate to make him think he'd fallen off his chair. Forgot the last six hours," Jon said proudly.

"And I'm sure that was an accident that you used an experimental charm on a muggle, then?" Sam asked knowingly.

"Oh, but of course! I was certainly not hoping I might accidentally blow him up into a bunch of little fat and bald chunks, or at least transfigure him into a member of the mallard family..." Jon replied dismissively.

"Uh huh..." Sam said with a look of playful disbelief.

"Shut up. Now, what did you want that I had to go through that mess back there?"

"Ah... well, I've been talking with Croaker..." Sam drifted off.

"And? What did old Mr. Freakishly-Pale-Knife-Throwing-Enthusiast have to say?"

Christophell looked at his feet, "Well, he says that he thinks the Death Eaters are getting ready."

"See? I told you Croaker's an ass. We've all known the damned Eaters have been getting ready for... what has it been... three years?"

"But he knows what for..."

"He knows?"

"That 'ass' has enough Seers, Readers, and Wraiths on his left shoulder to populate a small country."

"But he couldn't possibly... there's no way they'd start out so big. Besides, they've got enough Masking charms... I mean, we've already got a dozen units in place around the Forest. The Wards we've set up would at least shut out the Dementors... you couldn't pull off an alohomora in that place. But, why would he make his move now? It doesn't add up."

"I agree, Jon. Voldemort's a strategist. He likes to plan things out for years and years before making his move. But Bode and Croaker are sure. Apparently people are disappearing. All sorts, though. Muggles, squibs, muggle-borns, even members of the old purebloods. Actually, after I called you, I talked to Bode. He's freaking out. He says there's no pattern at all to it. It's actually scaring him."

"Bode?" Jon knew very well that when Hieronymus Bode displayed any human emotion, it was a serious time indeed. "So, what do they want us to do?"

"They say they want to call in the Backslider's."

At that moment, Jonathan Mercier said something that sounded roughly like, "Oh my God..." Yet there may have been something that followed, but it was lost as he fell to the floor with a loud thwump!