London, England
Earth
February 16, 2531 (UNSC Calendar)
The middle-aged military man who emerged from the wet streets outside was dressed in naval whites that were as bright and clean as the snow which dusted them, with a ramrod-straight posture that nevertheless radiated disgust. His piercing blue eyes were narrowed with anger, and the lines upon his face were exaggerated by the scowl it wore.
“Welcome home, Lord Hood,” greeted Jeeves, the family AI.
The man snorted. “I suppose so, seeing as I’m not particularly welcome anywhere else right now.”
Nor should he be, really, in hindsight. The official classifications were already calling it “the Battle of Arcadia.” The outright loss of Arcadia was more accurate, as it almost always was against the Covenant—and with it, far too many good men and women in uniform . . .
Including the Spirit of Fire, which up until two months ago had been his ship, captained by his friend and mentor, James Cutter.
Oh, the ship hadn’t fallen, precisely; unlike many, it had managed to retreat from the battlefield into Slipspace. But the log buoy it had dropped as it vanished, the only potential clue to locating its randomised destination—which he had been ordered to retrieve—had been lost at the battlefield. Lost, because he had been too angry, too focussed on making the Covenant bleed for their savagery. Focussed to the point that he’d taken on a ship that his own was in no way equipped to handle, and nearly lost it alongside the Spirit of Fire.
High Command was still debating his punishment, but it seemed unlikely he’d retain captaincy of his ship—he’d be lucky to keep the rank at all, and he knew it.
Lord Terrence Hood, present Captain of the UNSC Navy, had screwed up. And in screwing up, a lot more people than just himself would pay the price for it.
“Would you like me to prepare a meal, Lord Hood?” Jeeves asked. “Or perhaps Milord would prefer a bath? The weather is not precisely comfortable; you could likely use something hot.”
“My anger is hot enough right now, Jeeves,” the man stated honestly. “I could use a drink, or something to hit—possibly both.”
“I’m afraid the local constabulary frowns on combining the two, Milord,” the AI remarked dryly, not missing a beat. Instead, it counter-offered, “I’ll have a glass of brandy and a fire ready for you in the library, if you like.”
“. . . It’ll do,” Hood acknowledged grudgingly, even as he stepped out of the foyer and into the main house.
The townhouse, while large, was a grim old place—a far cry from the more opulent manor that the family used to host social occasions and show off its wealth—but it was old, having been in the family for several centuries. While not home, it was considered the original family seat; as such, it meant a great deal to the sort of traditionalists that he and his predecessors regularly dealt with in the House of Lords.
In the eyes of such people, one did not surrender such historic properties lightly, even if modern ones were more convenient.
For Hood himself, it was a residence that was closer to the centre of things, geographically, than the manor—as close as he could get without actually being stationed on a UNSC base, in fact. As such, he could be “unavailable” when it was convenient to his superiors (such as now, when his presence on-base would affect morale, and be a beacon to the media), but still within easy reach—the house was outside the base proper, but still within its general territory. After all, only an idiot assumed that a military base only cared about the confines of its walls, and didn’t pay attention to the general area beyond them.
In other words, it was a perfect place for him to be left to rot, and stew over his mistakes.
Hood grimaced—God knew, he’d had plenty of time to do it already. He’d managed to make arrangements for Cutter’s family (legitimate and otherwise); he could easily afford it, and it was the least he owed them. There was little left for him to do here but brood . . . And, he supposed, the library was as good a place as any to do so.
As Jeeves had promised, there was a glass of brandy waiting by an armchair before the great stone fireplace. The AI had even had the foresight to arrange to leave the bottle—something Hood suspected he and the AI would both come to regret, given how quickly he slugged back the contents of the glass and poured a second one.
Turning on his heel, Hood considered the various shelves before him. As might be expected, the house had access to countless digital books, but the library was fenced in by towering mahogany bookcases that held a number of physical, paper volumes. Many were first editions of ancient novels or texts, or simply fancy tomes bound in leather and gold. Collecting books had been something of a hobby for the family, over the centuries—and all became the more prevalent when electronic books began to seriously debut. After that, it was as much about having a real book available as it was any sort of collector’s value . . .
Which somewhat explained the eclectic shelf of well-read volumes in his immediate sight. For those volumes they did acquire for their collector’s value, but still wanted to read, there had to be “disposable” copies, as well. Most of that was old literature, “classics” and military treatises—service in the armed forces was another long-standing tradition in the Hood family—but none of those appealed to him right now. He hadn’t the patience to slog through high-minded, long-winded prose at the moment, and the less to do with military matters at the moment, the better. And those two facts left Captain Terrence Hood at something of a loose end regarding reading material.
Truth be told, as he’d said to Jeeves, he’d much rather hit—or shoot—something right now, but even if he’d been on base, his access to the range would’ve been restricted for “psychological reasons.” In other words, the brass didn’t think letting him have access to a gun right now was a good idea. And while, in other circumstances, he might’ve agreed with it as a rational decision, it was extremely frustrating right now.
Of course, what isn’t about this situation? Hood asked himself rhetorically. We’re losing ground to the Covenant every day—and millions of people in the bargain. We can only take them on with three-to-one odds in our favour, and even then, that’s just an equal fight, while they just go around and glass planets, for God’s sake!
The same attitude, the same rage, had caused him to act as he had at Arcadia—and while he was well aware of the terrible consequences of that decision, and regretted them deeply, that didn’t make the rage just go away . . .
Slugging back the second glass, he forewent the nicety of the glass entirely, and picked up the bottle before pacing the room.
They were putting up a fight—that was the oath he’d taken as a member of the UNSC, and he and everyone who wore the uniform were fulfilling it to the best of their abilities. They were bleeding the Covenant as best they could, and would continue to do so, but it didn’t change the fact that humanity was dying. Slowly, by inches, but it was happening. Humanity would die, unless something happened to change that—and at this point, they would need an honest-to-God miracle.
Angrily, Hood slammed a fist against the wall, causing pain to shoot up the side of his hand, and a book to tumble from the case beside him to the floor.
Scowling, he bent over to pick up the book—an old vampire novel, incongruous as it seemed. The sudden reminder of its presence in the stately library, with its cheap, pulpy appearance so wildly different from the luxurious, high-class tomes that surrounded him, caught Hood off-guard, and he paused.
It was titled “An Old Friend of the Family,” by Fred Saberhagen; a mass-market paperback with a painted cover of the type that had produced thousands of romance novels and other cheap books to adorn airport and drugstore bookshelves for decades. According to the copyright information, it had originally been published in 1979; this edition was relatively newer, albeit still several centuries old, but it showed no signs of any particular collectable value aside from its age. It was the sort of book that had been produced by the thousands, and digitised by the thousands, hundreds of years ago.
Why was it here again . . .?
Hood frowned. There was something—the appearance of the book itself rang a distant bell in his memory, but it was very distant, and the two strong brandies that he’d essentially mainlined were not helping his powers of recollection in the slightest. Yet, now that he turned his mind to it, that distant bell rang insistently, like a warning klaxon that ought to be signalling an imminent attack. There was something important about this book that he ought to be remembering, he was sure, but the only other thing he was certain of about it was that the book was too small to be a false one, hollowed out to hide valuables.
Hood collapsed into the armchair next to where he’d picked up the brandy, and stared at the cover a moment longer before deciding to thumb through it. It wasn’t as though he had anything else to do at the moment, and his general state of irritation—not at all pacified by the alcohol—refused to allow him to let it go, now.
There was no dedication within to the book; no autographs or notes from anyone famous that would’ve justified keeping it. The author’s name was familiar, but not known, like Shakespeare or Tennyson, so that wasn’t it, either. And it didn’t take the captain long to discover that someone had dog-eared one of the pages—an act that would’ve earned him a terrible punishment as a child. Worse, they’d highlighted lines in the book, which his grandfather would’ve taken as grounds to set him before a firing squad, if not hung immediately from the nearest tree.
Hood was intrigued, because despite the damage, the family had still kept the book. That implied that it was either physically irreplaceable (possible, but unlikely, given the existence of digital copies), or of incredible sentimental val—
As the highlighted text actually sunk into his conscious mind, Hood froze.
“Now when I say ‘troubles,’ I’m not talking about the ordinary sort. Like money troubles, or unfaithful husbands—those things God sends to us all,” the old woman told her firmly. “I’m talking about a day when the powers of Hell itself seem to well and truly have you in their grasp . . . Then, and only then, should this book be used. Do you understand, Clarissa?”
The captain stared at the book, remembering now why the name of the author—and the book itself—had seemed familiar. It was the old family legend; in fact, according to the legend, it was older than the family. Like tales of an ancestral ghost or banshee, the story had persisted throughout generations, taught but never believed: that when true danger or disaster struck the family, protection could be called for—and would, under the right circumstances, be granted.
It was ridiculous, of course; an old family joke played on the children, like Santa Claus; and yet, Hood was just drunk enough that the idea stuck in his head.
“A day when the powers of Hell seem to have you in their grasp . . .” he muttered, thinking aloud to himself more than anything else. “I’m not sure there’s a better description of the Covenant.”
Surely, the potential extinction of all humanity would be considered “the right circumstances”—if not, then nothing would. And he was alone, officially “on medical leave”; no one would know, or have to know, that he’d done anything . . .
“Jeeves,” Hood announced, “activate the Saberhagen Protocol.”
“. . . Acknowledged, sir,” the AI replied.
The ritual was a simple one, as such family traditions often were. It was done in the attic, before an antique mirror: a silver-backed one, with intricate design work scrolled across and around it that, to his knowledge, no one in the family had ever properly identified. The mirror had been around as long as the story, though; it was arguably the source of it, though the legend had never confirmed or denied that, or made any explanation was to why either might be so.
And it was only now, as Hood prepared to enact the ritual himself that a random thought occurred to him: the mirror had never really seemed to need caring for. Oh, it was dusty, certainly, but not nearly as much as it really ought to be, on close examination, with no hint of the tarnish or fading that should have accumulated after centuries, especially in a dank, dusty attic . . . And despite that, it had never been polished—never even really been seen, outside a rare occasion when the family legend was told—that he could ever recall.
And somehow, he—no one in his family, that he remembered—had ever really noticed that fact before.
A cold shiver travelled, unbidden, down Hood’s spine, before he told himself that he ought to be expecting conclusions like that, given that he was just too drunk to be sensible about things—if he wasn’t, then why else would he even be thinking of this ritual in the first place?
Hood lit the candle in front of him, picked up the penknife, and recited the words he’d been taught.
“Per votum antiquis ego voco te.
(By ancient vow, I call you.)
Volens per sanguinem ego voco te.
(Through willing blood, I call you.)
In extrema necessitate, voco te.
(In dire need, I call you.)
Martia ter dicuntur: per ter: et necessitate tenetur in verbo, et sanguis: et egrediebatur de summonicione nostra hercle!
(Thrice called, thrice bound in blood and word and need: answer my summons and come forth!)”
Pricking a thumb (it seemed appropriate), he allowed blood to well up, and dripped it onto the candle’s wick.
It was only as his eyes rose back up that he noticed, for a fraction of a second, that in the mirror, the candlelight flashed scarlet as it was extinguished.
For an instant, smoke stung his nostrils in silence—and then the mirror briefly but visibly vibrated—followed by an equally brief tremor that shook the rest of the house.
“Jeeves!” Hood demanded. “What was that?”
“. . . Working,” the AI replied after a moment, as though it was just as puzzled as he. “Apologies, Milord—but while I cannot identify the cause, the effect appears to have originated from the sub-basement.”
Nonplussed, Hood stared. “That’s ridiculous—this house doesn’t have a sub-basement!”
Sounding almost apologetic, Jeeves replied, “It does now, Lord Hood . . .”
Writer's Notes: With gratitude and apologies to the late Mr. Saberhagen, the text from An Old Friend of the Family is reproduced as faithfully as I can recall without actually digging the book out to check. And this is posted a day early, because I'm headed out to see Fantastic Beasts tomorrow as an early birthday present - which will no doubt give me ideas . . .
In the meantime: Wizards vs. Aliens, Round 2 - go!
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Originally Posted by hatori
