Chapter Text
Frater Imperator, known as Copia, is very particular about his Saturday evenings. He is in his red tracksuit by eight pm, settling in to watch the news by ten. He has a post-dinner snack of a glass of milk and six shortbread cookies arranged on a china plate. If these demands are not met he tosses and turns in the night, upset with indigestion or possible poisoning, he's uncertain. But it is definitely not stress. Copia is Too Blessed to Be Stressed, or so the little needlepoint on the wall by the cuckoo clock assures him.
The evening news plays on the doily-adorned ancient TV set. It is ten pm. Copia knows where his ghouls are.
"A small town is yet again beset by a strange number of animal attacks," says the television reporter. Her beautiful face bends slightly in concern as she unfolds the story. "Authorities are yet to uncover what type of animal is prowling at night. No animals have been reported missing from local zoos. Three people in the past six months have been killed in these night attacks, and a dozen more have sighted a large animal. Frater Copia, we have a request for you should you choose to listen."
Copia tilts his head. The newscaster waits for his reaction.
"Copia, is it? Frater Imperator Copia," repeats the newscaster. Copia stops chewing, blinks stupidly at the old television. Twenty years ago he rubbed a magnet across the screen for kicks and now a spot is forever purplish. The pretty blonde in the shoulder-padded blazer shuffles her papers as the news ticker scrolls across the screen. She smiles as if waiting for a reply. His reply.
At last Copia swallows. "Um…" He glances behind himself, waiting for a prank but the news program is still focused on this woman in a red lipsticked smile that becomes more sinister by the second. "Are you talking to me?"
"Who else would we be talking to?" Her voice is just as clipped as always, her hands fold over themselves on the glass desk. "Are you or are you not Frater Imperator Copia?"
"And what the hell do you want from me?"
"Perpetua. Your brother. We want your brother."
"Oh, of course, of course, my brother!" Copia grumbles. The terrifying fact that his television is personally speaking with him is immediately cast aside as his annoyance washes in. "And you can't go bother him? You know, by yourself? Can't you ah— can't you see I'm a little busy here?"
The news anchor smiles again, her eyes crinkling but there's a strain. "His wards. He keeps us out. Go on, call to him."
Copia groans, digs in his hoodie pocket and yanks out his flip phone. He peers into it and pecks the number out one digit at a time. The news ticker crawls and the woman waits and Copia frowns as the tinny ring goes on and on. He imagines the bell of the workshop phone puffing dust into the empty air. After a while he snaps the phone shut, huffing, "He never picks up!"
"You will have to take us to him, then. In person," she announces. "Immediately, we're afraid."
"I have things to do, and you come in here and eh— what's the meaning of this anyway, huh? I can't um— I can't have a moment's peace—"
The television flickers, an inky blackness stretches across the screen. It pulls away, a silken sheet of smoky darkness that slips into the air above Copia, hovering like the shadow of a giant bird. Copia stares wordlessly, bolted to the recliner in true fear. The smoke glides around the ceiling once, diving down in a thin trail into the phone beside him. His hand leaps away just in time and the phone rings again, Mozart 40 stabbing the air. Unlisted number. Copia pokes the phone, decides it won't kill him, then answers.
"We told you you will bring us to him," says the woman on the phone. "We speak what we demand."
Behind the woman's voice he hears muffled breaths, shrieks, some strange howling wind like a hurricane. But he knows whatever it is is waiting, and will wait forever if need be. "Who…who are you?" Copia manages to whisper.
"We are his friend."
It's a slog to the old carriage house and Copia's house slippers are soaked from the damp grass. He shambles on, shoulders hunched and hands stuffed under his armpits. Things scream and shuffle between the trees on the Satanic estate; Frogs chirping and ghouls on their hunt. In the space of two years it had come to this. Copia, at the height of his power, driven off to a role that only had weight on paper. A long lost brother emerged from deep in the clergy ranks of Nowheresville, a man full of magic yet seemingly untouchable.
And on top of all that, he was cheerful. Annoyingly so.
Copia raps the bronze bat knocker, hears a shout from Perpetua within. Copia's in luck; his twin at the moment's not occupied with either a grimoire or some sibling's pussy. The space was once Primo's and not much had changed since Perpetua arrived to take his place. It has the usual grotesqueries: ancient bones, cursed objects, jars of piss, nails, or piss-coated nails. The whole idea of it all disgusted him. Not to mention there was minimal organization of the library outside of intuition.
"Ah, Frater," says a voice on top of a bookshelf. Haze Ghoul lounges beside the taxidermied mount of a pelican, grinning stone teeth from ear to ear. Copia would mistake her for a stuffed jaguar if not for the soft, lazy swish of her tail. "It's past your bedtime, isn't it?"
"I eh—I have some er— grievance with your master," Copia mutters back. He follows the trail where the clutter gets thick. Notes and open books scatter the floor like the lining of a birdcage. Perpetua stands before a workbench, switching between staring at a micro-sized book of hours through a magnifying glass and scribbling things down in a dollar store marble notebook.
Perpetua stops, looks up and grins at his twin. The only thing they have in common is that Eye, the Mark of Destiny, pure white in their sockets. Perpetua wears his stained work waistcoat, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows; some sort of slovenly bellhop from Hell as far as Copia is concerned. Like always a gleaming skull mask is clipped to his belt.
"Can't sleep again, Copia? Thought I made you something for it," says Perpetua.
Copia does everything he can to fight it, but at last he relents. He needs help. From his brother. He rummages around in his hoodie pocket. "My phone. It's haunted."
"I'm surprised they haven't bricked that years ago," says Perpetua. He takes it carefully in his hands, smiling faintly. "I mean, I'm not really a tech support person either, Copia. Have you tried turning it on and off again?"
"I said what I said, it is haunted," Copia presses. "There's nothing ah, uniquely wrong with it in the em—the em—" The phone rings the staccato beeps and Copia settles into a deeper frown. "It's for you."
"Oh! For me!" Perpetua brightens, flipping the phone open and jamming it to his ear. "Yyyyellow?"
At once his eyes widen, his face goes slack. The whitened pupil burns as some unintelligible voice cracks through the phone. "I…see…" Perpetua murmurs. Haze Ghoul is on alert, jumping down to curl her arm around his neck and growl at some unseen foe. "I accept," he says. As if he has a choice.
The black smoke slips from the phone to hover in the air. It moves almost bat-like above them all, twin pinpricks of light hovering in its center like tiny eyes. As it moves around Perpetua's outstretched arm in a lazy loop the magician goes solemn. "Ah, you're back," he murmurs, his shy smile returning to his face. "I didn't think one of you would come back."
"Pets? You get em— cool pets too?" Copia huffs. He struggles with an outburst by hastily organizing the pile of books on the edge of the workbench. "And when am I going to get cool evil pets, hm?"
"When you make a soul pact with a demon, I guess," Perpetua says back, half paying attention. "But I um, well…I didn't just get them Copia. It's complicated."
"I got all day," hisses his brother.
Perpetua and Haze Ghoul exchange looks. "I don't really want to talk about it." The entity continues to encircle his hand as he teases its form with his fingers in an attempt to examine the structure. It folds in on itself, turns, then forces its way into Perpetua's arm through his palm. At once the tendons in his hands constrict, his fingers operating on their own as they scramble for a pencil.
Haze paces back and forth beside him and Copia searches his brain for any training on exorcisms. But Perpetua holds out his other hand to them. "Let's see what happens, yes?" the magician says. His left arm finds the notebook, opens it to a blank page.
"Now what is all this?" Copia sputters. "Who's talking to me through my television, ruining my evening and wanting to get to you?'
"Her name cannot be spoken," Perpetua says cheerily as he watches his hand skitter over the paper. His pen draws the ritual symbols, a rectangular cosmic door littered with glyphs only intelligible to demonic gods. "But if there was a class yearbook for Year Zero she would be the Homecoming Queen next to Satan."
"Oh there's nothing eh— strange about all this, huh," Copia seethes, crossing his arms. "Nothing foreshadowed or um doomed or cursed about this relationship! No! Not at all!"
"I couldn't even fathom it if I tried," says Perpetua, his grin widening. As he looks into his brother his hand continues to draw on its own. "But I'm here and right now it's all going well."
"Speak for yourself."
"I am, brother." The hand falls slack, the black fog creature lifts into the air. It's done. Perpetua strides over to a blank stone wall and pulls a thick piece of chalk from his pocket. Copia and Haze watch him draw a huge rectangle and transfer the symbols to a frame around it, muttering to himself as he works.
Perpetua moves from one task to another, seemingly propelled by some infernal motor within. He has no hesitation, no semblance of fear or uncertainty. He had once explained that he was exceptionally lucky but was vague about the rest of his backstory, preferring instead to show off a resume of occult accomplishments about six feet long when unrolled. He's abandoned the chalk drawing and transitioned towards a moment where he stands before a painting of a snakelike gorgon. Above his head the entity revels in the trails of smoke coming from the altar's incense. Perpetua murmurs something into his mask, plants it on his head. He turns, and always Copia feels a moment of fear.
Copia's designed his own skull visage; every papa before him has. None had looked so fierce as that gleaming skull mask that shadowed his twin's eyes. In that mask there was something beyond the music, beyond just the theatrics of shaking your ass on stage for Satan. The man looked truly demonic. Bound to something that cannot be named.
"Haze, Copia. I'm off."
"But to where?" pleads the ghoul. Copia just wants his phone back. He inches over to the workbench while Haze whines to her lover. They have a heated little spat as Perpetua opens a coat closet and changes up his clothes. Copia pokes the phone on the table, waits for an attack but then takes a risk to return it to his pocket. He barely missed a thing.
"Whatever my patron asks of me, I shall do. That's the vow," Perpetua says. He cups his ghoul's head in his hands, smiling. If it was anyone less charming than him that crooked grin under his thin nose would be salesman slimy. He plants a kiss to her forehead, bounds over to the door. The smoke creature follows, slipping under his coat collar to nestle across his back. "Besides, I have a feeling I won't be alone."
"If anyone hurts you I'll kill them all," Haze reassures.
"I don't doubt that for a second, my angel." He knocks on the wall. The stone shudders and squeals and a rectangular hole's inexplicably there. Some cool breeze pushes crisp clouds across a moonless night, a dark cornfield swaying dreamily in all directions.
Copia has to say something. He's seen the impossible happen right before his eyes and he admits he's shaken by how cool his twin appears in the face of some cosmic danger. "Hey, uh, Perpetua uh…you be careful, okie?"
"Safety first, boss," Perpetua replies with a salute. He steps beyond the door and between the tall stalks, the stone grinding back into place behind him.
The wall's a wall again and now all they do is wait.