the truth...and the consequences... {backstory}
The greatest secret he’s ever kept lives in a little brown prescription bottle sitting in his nightstand drawer, one he reaches for every morning, about an hour before Rory stirs beside him. It’s a reminder of the bitter past, and a testament to one of magic’s ugliest truths: curses always leave scars.
It was Milan, 1943, and he was serving the United States Army under the name of Jeremiah Layton. The military had pulled him from his unit in Venice when he stopped a fire at base camp with a spell. He wasn’t the only supernaturally gifted soldier fighting, a fact that didn’t surprise him. What was shocking was the calculation with which the United States was using its assets, and the task they set before him.
One mission, one assignment, and he could receive an early discharge. One brutal act, and he could take a huge step towards ending the war.
It looked easy enough on paper: the Nazis had a necromancer with an army of zombies that were wreaking havoc on Allied troops. All he had to do was wear the German uniform, spend a few days at a bar in Milan and wait for the captain and his staff to show up...and make sure it couldn’t be traced back to American hands.
He had a special place in his heart for the pure and unadulterated hatred of the Nazis and all they stood for…it was a hard choice, but a swift one.
His contact was the barkeep, who gave him food and boar while he waited for three days. He learned a lot about wine and Italian cuisine, as well as a few things that the barkeep’s daughter showed him after hours in her room. The hard part came when they arrived and he played the wayward German soldier waiting on transfer orders, carefully watching his German and his accent as he bought the officers a round and toasted the Furher.
It sickened him to be invited to their table, to listen to them chattering in German, made him sicker still to smile and nod as they discussed the latest victories of the captain’s army. To think he shared blood with these people, to think that these unworthy still walked his Mother Earth with the stuff of life in their veins…
It wasn’t hard, not even a little. With every glass of wine, the officers got rowdier and thirstier, but Jed never got so much as tipsy. After all, his glass was never empty. And the wine was sparkling, clear as the purest water while his companions at the table struggled to slake their thirst, to shed the suddenly dry climate and papery feel of their skin…
There were no screams, only coughing and dry, raspy gulps for air and water. The death rattles fell on deaf ears as the four bodies surrounding Jed finally collapsed and continued to shrivel, while Jed’s glass filled again and again with water straight from their veins, power for the taking. He drank his fill of their fluid and their life until the husks on the floor had been sapped for every drop.
The corpses puffed in clouds of thick, noxious dust when kicked. The bartender swept it up and quietly disposed of the remains.
Jed declined his discharge and was transferred to a new infantry unit. He was part of the invasion on Sicily, where he discovered that the curse he’d used to kill four Nazis had dire consequences. Taken off guard by an Italian soldier that got the drop on him, the remaining four shots in his weapon were emptied straight into Jed’s belly. Miraculously, he woke in an Army hospital a few weeks later, barely alive but breathing all the same.
And for his trouble, he bore the scars of those bullets on his skin…and the pain of all four shots for the rest of his days. For every bullet, an officer’s face burned in his brain, and for every day he lived while they lay dead, he felt the bullet tear anew into his gut.
Curses leave scars, and Jed lives the reality every morning he wakes up to sneak a pain pill from his nightstand that dulls the burn in his gut to bearable proportions for the day ahead. He lives the reality, hides the agony from even his father...and never casts a curse unless he knows it’s worth suffering for.
It was Milan, 1943, and he was serving the United States Army under the name of Jeremiah Layton. The military had pulled him from his unit in Venice when he stopped a fire at base camp with a spell. He wasn’t the only supernaturally gifted soldier fighting, a fact that didn’t surprise him. What was shocking was the calculation with which the United States was using its assets, and the task they set before him.
One mission, one assignment, and he could receive an early discharge. One brutal act, and he could take a huge step towards ending the war.
It looked easy enough on paper: the Nazis had a necromancer with an army of zombies that were wreaking havoc on Allied troops. All he had to do was wear the German uniform, spend a few days at a bar in Milan and wait for the captain and his staff to show up...and make sure it couldn’t be traced back to American hands.
He had a special place in his heart for the pure and unadulterated hatred of the Nazis and all they stood for…it was a hard choice, but a swift one.
His contact was the barkeep, who gave him food and boar while he waited for three days. He learned a lot about wine and Italian cuisine, as well as a few things that the barkeep’s daughter showed him after hours in her room. The hard part came when they arrived and he played the wayward German soldier waiting on transfer orders, carefully watching his German and his accent as he bought the officers a round and toasted the Furher.
It sickened him to be invited to their table, to listen to them chattering in German, made him sicker still to smile and nod as they discussed the latest victories of the captain’s army. To think he shared blood with these people, to think that these unworthy still walked his Mother Earth with the stuff of life in their veins…
It wasn’t hard, not even a little. With every glass of wine, the officers got rowdier and thirstier, but Jed never got so much as tipsy. After all, his glass was never empty. And the wine was sparkling, clear as the purest water while his companions at the table struggled to slake their thirst, to shed the suddenly dry climate and papery feel of their skin…
There were no screams, only coughing and dry, raspy gulps for air and water. The death rattles fell on deaf ears as the four bodies surrounding Jed finally collapsed and continued to shrivel, while Jed’s glass filled again and again with water straight from their veins, power for the taking. He drank his fill of their fluid and their life until the husks on the floor had been sapped for every drop.
The corpses puffed in clouds of thick, noxious dust when kicked. The bartender swept it up and quietly disposed of the remains.
Jed declined his discharge and was transferred to a new infantry unit. He was part of the invasion on Sicily, where he discovered that the curse he’d used to kill four Nazis had dire consequences. Taken off guard by an Italian soldier that got the drop on him, the remaining four shots in his weapon were emptied straight into Jed’s belly. Miraculously, he woke in an Army hospital a few weeks later, barely alive but breathing all the same.
And for his trouble, he bore the scars of those bullets on his skin…and the pain of all four shots for the rest of his days. For every bullet, an officer’s face burned in his brain, and for every day he lived while they lay dead, he felt the bullet tear anew into his gut.
Curses leave scars, and Jed lives the reality every morning he wakes up to sneak a pain pill from his nightstand that dulls the burn in his gut to bearable proportions for the day ahead. He lives the reality, hides the agony from even his father...and never casts a curse unless he knows it’s worth suffering for.