Denver Mage: A History as told by a Chorister Disciple

Adam Gallowglass

La Iglesia del Buen Pastor.

A progressive, service-orientated, nondenominational parish: and here Adam thought that this 'Pan' guy was a Catholic priest. That assumption hadn't been particularly rocked when Adam dropped the Chorister and his box of bones off where-ever it is Pan had Adam drop him. The conversation in the car hadn't been very much; it was late, and there were bones, and perhaps neither of the men involved were particularly verbose. Pan's impression of Adam's driving was likely that speeding tickets are probably a mainstay, but that's all. So late at night as that drive was there weren't many others on the road, nobody to piss Adam off.

Time passes. Adam: who knows what he's up to? He's always up to something, always has something to occupy himself. He disappears from the world and it doesn't matter because he brings the world with him: as far as he is concerned.

And now the time has arrived for Adam to go visit Pan, properly. Pan is perhaps innocent of this intention of the Hermetic's, although maybe he said something polite after dropping the Chorister off. He can be polite, Adam. A polite and well-mannered tired-eyed boy.

He checks the schedule and drops by early in the morning or late in the afternoon, when the shadows are long and it's less likely the absence of his own would become an issue.

There's always an office. To the office, probably.

Fr. Echeverría

When Adam arrives at the church the daycare kids are outside toddling around in the sunlight while their staff stand around weary but content in their weariness. Two sets of eyes watch him walk into the building but no one intercepts him.

They figure he's there to ask about the NA meetings. That's what they always figure white people are doing when they come to the church. That or he's a reporter wanting to bother Father Pan.

Fate doesn't always see fit for the priest to be in the house of the Lord when the others come looking for him. They have had to leave notes with the woman who works as the office administrator. The sole individual responsible for making sure the church functions and has properly balanced books and that nobody who isn't supposed to be here comes staggering in ranting and waving around a weapon.

The office-office is more prominent than the priest's office. Right at the head of the foyer. Her door is open and the overhead lights are on and tinny Spanish-language rock music plays at a reasonable volume.

The woman is on the phone when Adam comes in. Speaking in Spanish and intermittently tapping the keys on her computer keyboard. She glances up from what she's doing to read the intention in the stranger's form but Adam can already tell where the priest is and that he's worked recently.

That intense-illuminating resonance is stronger in this place than it is at the Chantry.

Rosa Salazar takes one look at the tired-eye white boy and says something into the phone that has the tone of god damn it hang on a moment.

"You here for Padre Echeverría?" she asks. Her accent that of west-central Mexico and her tone is not friendly. She frowns and points a finger that-a-way. "Last door on the right."

The priest's door is open.

Adam Gallowglass

Rosa Salazar won't be able to describe the priest's visitor later. Tired-eyed? Maybe. White? Uh, could be. Blonde? Eh. Dirty blonde? Mediumish. Tall. Eh. He doesn't leave much of an impression [Mysterious (Intrinsically, Inherently)], because Adam Gallowglass is less than a shadow most days. He has substance but it doesn't want to stick: He's just not interesting enough.

He doesn't stop to watch the toddlers like maybe that's going to give him a moment of smile look the future. He doesn't stop to do more than squint at the ascension of light while really he was hoping for more overcast and cloudy days, before: well, that office. That office, Rosa Salazar, and he is polite and courteous when he says, "Gracias," look at him, whipping out the big guns like gracias.

He walks down the hall. How boring, but eh, what is one going to do? One doesn't have the ability or inclination to teleport. He walks down the hall and he knocks on the door which is open -- on the door-frame, rap, rap, poking his head in. He doesn't call the priest's name all inquisitively before his eyes catch up to his brain and he sees whatever there is to see. Priest at his desk, typing. Priest looking out a window, bored. Priest coming out've some little side-door, zipping up. Priest reading, whichever.

Fr. Echeverría

Rosa is not impressed by Adam's grasp of elementary Spanish. The aging woman gives a sardonic flick of her thin eyebrows and sets her jaw and keeps the phone's mouthpiece against her collarbone until the nondescript güero has walked himself out of her office and gone off to bother the priest. Knows without him even having to say something that he's here for something having to do with Them and the less she knows about it the better her day is going to go.

Just as soon as his feet his the tile out in the hall she picks up her conversation again.

And the floor in the hall is old battered wood. This place has been around for a long time and the disrepair has halted. Adam can feel the intensity of the light even in the hall where no windows let in light. He knocks on the door and looks in and finds the Chorister everyone has mentioned. Whom he's met once.

The office itself is of a decent size but it is congested with books. Two couches and two armchairs form a coterie atop an area rug in the center of the room. A few potted plants have found places to live in the corners of the room but every other available space has a bookcase pushed up against it and the bookcases have no more room in them so Pan has started stacking books on the floor beside the bookcases. On his desk. His desk has one small space for a telephone and one larger space for him to fit his elbow when he sits down to write a letter.

Suffice to say the room smells of old pages and worn bindings. The priest is sat at his desk reading through some papers and he doesn't look up until Adam knocks.

"Mister Gallowglass," he says. Pleasant surprise. He stands. "How can I help you?"

Adam Gallowglass

He takes that as invitation enough to cross the threshold and enter the priest's office. He does not close the door unless there's an indication that he should. The hall isn't packed with parishioners, after all. There aren't sleepers everywhere, clamoring and noisy. The Church is rather quiet. Gallowglass likes quiet. He can't be much older than Pan's son: is probably younger, even - or just around the same age. There is nothing similar about them except for a resonance: valiant. Valiant is close to something Rafael's Will feels like.

Here in Pan's light-filled office [sense of light everywhere; luminous, illuminating - bad for the books, but not symbolically (and the world is symbols)], Adam looks around once to get his bearings, and he doesn't pussyfoot around. No pauses no thoughtful silences nope. Adam is all business.

Polite business, but business nonetheless. Direct(or).

"I was hoping you and I could talk about the House, if now is convenient. I hope you're well? And the bones, have they been laid to rest yet?"

They met under weird circumstances. That one time.

Fr. Echeverría

If no one has mentioned Rafael to him then Adam will not know that Pan has a son. He is a tall man who would have been rangy when he was the Hermetic's age. Probably slouched to try and offset his height. Time Mages can see the ghost of who he was as a dope-hungry young man but all Adam sees anymore is a solid self-possessed man clad in black. No hint of territoriality or defensiveness even as Adam comes into his house.

It isn't truly his house. It's God's house. Minor clarification.

Pan frowns like to quietly dispel the idea that now isn't convenient or that he isn't well.

"The bones are interred in a crypt," he says. "I intend to give him a proper Requiem Mass after Easter. If there's a place other than Denver he'd prefer to have been laid to rest, hopefully I'll find out before the bones go in the ground."

As he speaks Pan crosses the room to where the furniture sits. He indicates the couches with an open palm at the end of an outstretched arm. They're going to talk about the House.

"Sit, please. Can I get you something to drink?"

Adam Gallowglass

"Tea if you have it. Coffee otherwise, ta." 'Ta' as if it's a way to say 'thanks.' Adam's accent comes and goes. He is American. His voice is American. Except: every now and then there's a slant to it - a difficult to place accent that almost isn't.

He takes a seat on one of the couches. He does not sit up straight, but instead his shoulders hunch forward a little and he rests his forearms on his knees. He's not quite leaning, relaxed. But it's a comfortable bookworm's slouch, poised carefully on the edge of courtesy. Not because he is worried about being discourteous, about what might happen, but because he is a well-brought up young man, even if he never combs his hair.

While Pan's getting the tea or the coffee, Adam's running his eyes over the books, curiously. Apparently he's not just going to start talking until both Willworkers are settled.

Fr. Echeverría

The 'ta' confuses the priest and the confusion shows on his face but it quickly sublimates into cautious amusement. Alright. He's a Hermetic. A little eccentricity is to be expected. Not that he has anyone other than Kalen or Hawksley or Garrett for a template as to how Hermetics tend to behave.

"Momentito," he says and steps out of the office.

That moment becomes something like five minutes. Water has to boil and tea has to steep. He comes back carrying a small pot and two mugs all the handles held in one hand so he can manipulate doors with the other. Once he's doled out the mugs and poured the tea and sat himself down on the couch opposite Adam he sits straight-backed with his hands knit between his knees and clears his throat.

The man hasn't shaved his face since before the last time Adam saw him. They're nearly halfway through Lent. He'll have a decent beard going by the time they celebrate Christ's resurrection.

"The House, then."

Adam Gallowglass

He does not lose his patience while he is waiting. He does rest his elbows on his knees after all and laces his fingers together into a loose cradle while he is waiting. His eyes don't rest but they're not darting, either. He's just reading, just looking, cocking his head just so at one point the better to get a look at a gold-scripted title. He is beginning to think about getting up to read one particular volume which looks interesting to him when the Chorister returns, pours the tea, etcetera.

"The House," he says. And pauses. Adam is a very self-assured and self-possessed man. Of course he is. He's a Hermetic. They also call that 'arrogance' - it's something every Mage has. The pause is to gather his thoughts and pick a point of entry.

"I've visited it a number of times now," obviously, since that's where Pan and Adam met. "It isn't what I'm used to. I'm used to more regimented chantry houses, of course. Places where there is a clear head. The only clear head here," a brief smile, though his tone is becoming wry, "seems to be you, since whenever I ask - 'what are the rules? What should I not do other than not be an asshole?' - the consensus is 'Oh. Ask Pan.' Or 'Oh. You want to do that? Ask Pan I guess.' So I am asking you: do I have permission to go there?" Formality, it must be: considering. "Will you grant me access to the library?"

"And is there anything I should know about the House?"

Fr. Echeverría

What a question.

A series of questions really but the main one is what he should know about the House. No one has told him anything about the House and there is no public record of how the House came to be theirs or whether there are any rules other than the ones that the twenty-somethings have laid down. Pan does not find this amusing but he is not surprised to hear it either.

"The guardians of the Chantry died last summer."

That's where all stories start. Even Singers know how to tell a goddamn story.

"Six of them, yeah? Two of them were of your Tradition. I do not remember their, ah... houses. Two of them were of Miz Yates' Tradition - Euthanatos. If you haven't met her yet. And the other two were Hedonists. Miz Yates was abroad and few of us were in the city at the time but we didn't know them and we didn't know each other but all of us started... gravitating... towards each other, after a group of Fallen forced a girl about Shoshannah's age to Awaken. That Awakening killed the entire cabal and left the House empty. The Fallen started seeking out those of us who were still here. Took a particular interest in Serafíne after she and a couple others went looking for them. We found out about the girl and decided to bring her back."

He wears no jewelry on his hands but he worries his trigger finger with the opposite hand before continuing. A brief motion that might mean nothing. Too much stillness is no better than too much fidgeting.

"A Verbena Disciple named Annie came up from Texas after she found out. Her brother was one of the Cultists who died. Took a bit of doing to get the girl back from the Nephandi but we had her in a hotel for a while before Annie found a cabin to keep her in. We didn't know what to do with her. Long story short I destroyed the Fallen and Shoshannah and Lena and Sid helped the girl come back to the light and Annie took her back to Texas. Left the keys to the place with me and told me not to let nothing like that happen again."

Like that's anything anyone ever decides to let happen. A sigh brings them back to Adam's questions:

"Couple months after that. Must've been August. An incident occurred in one of the city parks. Sera'd had a dream the night before, started telling me about it when Lena came along. You prolly gonna get a clearer story from one of the girls but dogs came out the bushes and attacked us. They were dead, yeah? The dogs. But they were up and moving anyway. I got tore up pretty bad driving 'em off."

That's what happens when you stand between vicious animals and Initiate Cultists, Father.

"Ended up in the hospital after that. Paradox hit me pretty hard. Busted a blood vessel inside my head. Another Disciple Verbena you prolly ain't ever gonna meet got me out the hospital but I was at her place... two months, I think, maybe three, just recovering. Had to learn how to do all sorts of things over again. Couldn't walk so good, my English was about gone." He'd had a stroke. He's lucky to be alive. "So, ah... I got back end of November, and the others told me about an Umbrood that'd been tethered to this plane by a film. That's another story. But that took up a lot of our, ah, attention. So that's why there ain't no kind of structure in place right now. Library access..."

He drags a hand down his nascent beard to bring them back to the present.

"Not to put too fine a point on it, but I don't know nothing about you, other'n you were at the House when Kalen called me. How long you planning on staying?"

Adam Gallowglass

He has heard pieces of some of these stories already. Just that, though: pieces. And references to this 'Pan' guy, over and over and over. Come on, guys. Even if he is great, get some agency. Adam: He's a dick.

But he listens intently (relentless [forever; pursuit, pursuit]) while the Chorister talks. Does not interrupt. Does not seem impatient. He is still contained, although perhaps the expression in his seaish eyes is thoughtful; pensive, even.

Clears, slightly, at that 'not to fine a point.' "Hah." It'll pass for a chuckle; cough of a thing, and he shifts in position finally. Says, "You know my name. Dominic Adam Julian Gallowglass bani Bonisagus, but most of the Awakened community calls me Adam. I manage my aunt's bookshop, Night Owl Books. Perhaps you know it? It's been around for decades, but Sarah has decided to get married and see the world, so I will be here at least a year, perhaps more."

Because when you stay somewhere for a year you start putting down roots. He shrugs.

"A family affair, but it is good for me. I can study in peace. What else do you want to know?"

Fr. Echeverría

"You're not gonna cause no trouble, right?"

Blame it on the incidents all he wants but Pan doesn't want to be the hardass everybody expects a Disciple Chorister to be. Doesn't want to interrogate every fucking body as soon as they walk in the door. Doesn't have the desire and doesn't have the time. He's a busy man.

Sounds rhetorical but at the same time: this is his only chance to come clean with anything he doesn't want found out. Like the priest is going to find out anyway. Arrogance.

"If I was to look into your, ah, your background, where you been and all that, there ain't gonna be no trouble coming after you?"

Adam Gallowglass

He looks perplexed. "I don't think so." To the first. Then - there's a spark of wry humour, sublimated just. "And no, not as far as I am aware."

Fr. Echeverría

"Good. I'll call Shoshannah and have her add you to the list."

Pan doesn't stand to signal that the meeting is over but he does reach to pick up his now-cooled mug. Takes a tentative sip before the larger one. Easy to neglect his own basic needs when his people have many more and bigger ones.

"That answer your questions?"

Adam Gallowglass

"Yes, thanks." He pauses; just to signal another topic - or not another topic, but another direction: "I have a Tradition mate in town who you have not met; he'd also like to speak to you, for rather the same reasons I did, but probably at greater length."

Poor Pan. Hermetics. That spark of humour hasn't quite died, but it does dissipate. 'Probably at greater length.' Cute, Adam. "He was exiled from Awakened Society for ten years, and has just recently returned to it, you see."

Another brief pause; and Adam, he does stand. He can read a room. He takes another sip of tea, not hastily, but still: finishes it off, nearly. Holds out a hand to shake.

"I'd like to talk to you at greater length some time as well. About your beliefs. I'm interested in the philosophies of the other traditionalists." An eyebrow cock, as if to say: eh?

Fr. Echeverría

Adam stands. Pan lets him rise first like to give him the impression it's his choice to leave and not his being able to tell the priest has shit to do and not enough time to do it. Anchors his hands on his own knees to get himself to his feet. He isn't terribly old but to look at him guessing he's only 45 would be generous. Between the battered quality of his bones and the territory the silver in his hair has claimed he could be closer to 50.

This other Hermetic was exiled for a decade. Pan doesn't react to this. Absorbs it but no judgment passes across his features.

And then they shake hands and Adam's pronouncement has the priest pausing in a way he did not pause to hear of Adam's cohort. The Hermetic wants to talk about beliefs. That's cute.

"You are?" he asks. Sounds dubious. Releases Adam's hand and pockets his. "Been a few while since I've had a philosophical debate. I look forward to it." He turns slightly in the direction of the front door. "I live in the house right across the street. You come by around eight or nine o'clock at night, if I'm home, I'm prolly not busy. Stop by any time."

Adam Gallowglass

"You're welcome to come by the bookshop," Adam says, eyeing some of Pan's books once more. His handshake is firm. Decisive. Adam: he could be a leader, if he wanted to be. If he weren't more interested in books. Dry and dusty, a piece of paper curling, scribed in valorous ink. He says it like it's just a return piece of hospitality, which it probably is. "And I will."

Stop by.

"Thanks, erm, for the tea as well," he says, by way of farewell. "Ta," this time not a thank-you. And that's all from Adam Gallowglass. He doesn't linger or try to talk shop or cluck sympathetically over work or anything like that. He's good:

Not worth noticing when he leaves. Nobody does. Just some guy. Maybe he left when he really left, maybe it was more like fifteen minutes earlier, or maybe it was some other guy.

Fr. Echeverría

[LE FIN]