Mage the Awakening - Guardians of the Veil.pdf - Mage - The Awakening - RPG

The Final Temptation of the

Saint of Shippen Street

If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill the Buddha... the sacred teachings are only

lists of ghosts, sheets of paper ﬁ t for wiping the pus from your boils.

— Linji Yixuan

EVIDENCE FILE: Case # 7345.34

EXHIBIT D: At-length freeform statement by JB induced by hypnotic recall on 10-27-XX. Present dur-

ing recording: JB (subject), KG, PN, GRS (MD).

TRANSCRIPT BEGINS:

“Are you here for the miracle also?”

His accent suggests a Middle Eastern origin, consistent with his skin tone, his hair color, his facial fea-

tures and the Arabic writing just visible on a piece of folded notepaper jutting from his shirt pocket. He’s

dressed in a denim shirt and paint-stained work pants; the calluses and scars on his ﬁ ngers betray that

he works with his hands.

“Miracle?” I ask. We’re in the back room on the third ﬂ oor of a fourth-rate bookstore on Shippen Street.

The kind that manages to survive the encroachment of megalithic chain booksellers by sheer inertia: the

building’s paid off, taxes are low here and it’s close enough to the university to attract academic types

interested in exploring a seedy neighborhood. The rooms all smell vaguely of mold and wood, and beneath

the cheap carpeting, the ﬂ oorboards creak like the deck of a ship whenever someone walks from one

cramped room to the next. For the past 20 minutes, I’ve been sitting in a ratty old armchair, pretending

to sort through the pile of dog-eared paperbacks on the table next to me, while the only other person in

the room paced nervously from one shelf to the next. Now he’s talking to me, apparently unable to keep

silent any longer.

“Miracle?” I repeat. “What do you mean?”

The man steps closer to my chair. “They say,” he tells me, in a low voice, “that miracles happen in this

room. If — “ He glances around nervously. “If one is here at the right moment.”

“Really. This doesn’t seem like a miraculous kind of place.” It’s a dark and rainy Saturday, late in the

afternoon. This little room is lined with bookshelves, of course. There’s a single large window, made of

stained glass that’s so dirty it might as well be brick. The yellow lightbulb overhead gives off feeble light,

and occasionally sputters and ﬂ ickers like a candle ﬂ ame. “What kind of miracles?”

He opens his mouth to answer, then backs away as an overdressed, elderly couple wanders into the

room. I take note of the worn spots and loose stitches on their clothes, the scuffs and scratches on their

shoes. The oldsters have fallen on hard times, but are trying to keep their dignity. They walk slowly, shuf-

ﬂ ing really, leaning on each other as they peer at the bookshelves. I wonder how they managed to carry

themselves up the two ﬂ ights of stairs. Perhaps they’ve also come hoping for a miracle, for stronger limbs,

a cure for arthritis or a ﬁ nancial windfall. But I don’t think so. They seem intent on the books, on each

other. They don’t show any signs of nervousness or impatience. Unlike my new friend, who walks behind

my chair, and as he passes by, whispers, “Big ones.”

Some minutes pass. I stand and stretch. The old couple has left the room; now a few college kids are

poking at a shelf of ragged hardcovers. A girl with a nose ring, a tall guy wearing eyeliner and rouge.

“My name is Michael,” the man with the accent tells me, offering his hand to shake.

“Jack,” I answer. The college kids are engrossed in their own loud conversation, seemingly oblivious

to us. “Pleased to meet you.” His shake is ﬁ rm and honest, perhaps too much so. The perfect disguise is

never exactly perfect.

I’m thinking about the question Michael asked me. Am I here for a miracle? The answer should be an

easy one. But it’s not. I feel that I’ve come here for an important reason, and that it does have something

to do with miracles. Yet I can’t be certain. I rummage through my thoughts the way you fumble through

that one drawer in the kitchen that’s full of a bit of everything: scotch tape, thumbtacks, matches, string

— but I can’t grab hold of what I’m looking for. I not only can’t recall why I’ve come here, I’m not certain

why I don’t walk away right now.

I’m looking at the students. I don’t see anything unusual about them. I don’t know what that means,

though, not really. It’s not just their physical appearance I’m evaluating, their clothes or their gestures.

Somehow I think I could see their true natures if I wanted to. I look at Michael. He seems normal. There’s

some inner light, some hidden nature I should be seeing — if I could just remember what it is. How to look

for it. I don’t let my confusion show on my face. You can’t be too careful. You can’t be too subtle. Especially

regarding miracles.

We smile politely at each other for an awkward moment. Then I say, “Were you serious about the miracles,

Michael?”

His eyes narrow. “I should maybe not be talking about it,” he answers. “But . . . for me, not talking is a

hard thing when I am nervous. You see . . . “ The ﬂ oors creak as the kids walk out, and he relaxes a bit.

“There is a saint, Jack. One who appears in this very room to work miracles.” He sees the puzzled look on

my face and adds, “I know this to be true.”

I’m nodding. “Go on.”

“There was a man, a plumber. His eyes were very bad. Cataract. He walked with a guide dog. One day,

he comes here. The next morning, his eyes are perfect 20-20. Another time, a professor from the college.

Lost his job, soon to be evicted from his house. He comes home from this place, he digs up a certain spot in

his lawn and there he ﬁ nds this old box of rare coins, worth . . . “ Michael waves his hands, “I don’t know

how much.”

“Well — “ I start to say.

“Wait.” He cuts me off. “And again. The third miracle. A secretary, very bad hooked on drugs. She came

here, by the time she got home, her cravings for drugs were gone and her body healed. And also, but two

weeks ago: one of the sisters, a nun I mean. She has breast cancer. But after this — “ he gestures around

the room, “the cancer . . . gone.”

Michael is silent now. I see the conviction in his eyes. He’s daring me to talk him out of his belief. I de-

cide not to try. These tales should be making me skeptical. That’s the kind of person I am. But instead I’m

grappling with a sense of familiarly. I’ve heard the stories he’s just told, heard them before, more than

once. The details are familiar. I’m not sure why.

“There is more, friend,” he says to me. “In each case, the people — the plumber and the others — they say

they saw the saint in this room. They say they saw a tall man — well, some say woman — with long ,brown

hair and eyes like ﬁ re. A tranquil face, a glow about his head. The saint’s light ﬁ lled the room, and he touched

their forehead. He smiled and granted them their wishes.” Michael is practically glowing himself, now,

almost rapturous as he imagines the scene. “They are ﬁ lled with happiness, they go home as if sleepwalk-

ing and, when the trance is broken, their deepest dream has come true.”

“Their deepest dream,” I say, giving my voice enough of a sharp edge to break his reverie.

“Well, yes.” He glances at his wristwatch. “Why do you sound so angry, friend? Wouldn’t you want such

a miracle?”

I would. But I wouldn’t. The holes in my memory are disorienting. But if there’s one thing I’m sure of, it’s

that miracles don’t mix very well with the real world. A saint as Michael describes . . . it might be better

to murder him than to accept his gift.

I don’t know why I think that.

More time passes. Michael paces, checking his watch once per minute. I ﬂ ip

through a trashy paperback, a thriller with a lurid cover: the corpse of a beautiful

woman lying in a pool of blood. I stare at the artwork, the vulgar smear of blood

— real blood’s not so bright, so vivid. In my memory, I see myself crouched in

an alley. It’s night. I’m in some other city, years ago, and it’s very

hot, at least 90, even at one in the morning. I’m working

homicide — that’s the phrase that clicks into my head,

working homicide. I’m crouched in an alley where two

drug dealers and their crews had gone at it with guns, knives,

baseball bats. I see the half-dozen corpses, the blood, various

chunks of ﬂ esh, strewn across an alley like they’d fallen from

a plane. I know that ordinarily I’d be feeling some satisfaction

— a handful of social parasites have wiped each other out, and

managed to do it without catching some unlucky bag lady in

the crossﬁ re.

But that night — maybe I was tired, maybe I was strung out on

caffeine and nicotine. That night, I stared at the crime scene

and just wondered at the meaning of it all. What was the point

of people killing each other over who gets to peddle poison on

which street corner? What was the point of cleaning up

one slaughter when the next one was already hap-

pening somewhere? Ordinarily, I wasn’t the kind of

guy to ask these kinds of questions. But that night,

i n

that alley, I had to know. I needed to know. I traced

the scene with my eyes, moving from body to body, con-

necting pools of blood with invisible lines, thinking somehow

there was a pattern to be read, meaning to be found. That

the curl of a broken limb or the splatter of brain on brick

were letters in some hidden alphabet, fragments of words

that could explain everything.

At some point, I walked away. I remember one of

the uniformed ofﬁ cers asking me if I needed anything

else. I waved him off. Kathy had already gone home.

Kathy — poor Kathy. She was my partner. That comes back

to me as I turn the trashy paperback over in my hands.

She was a square-jawed single mother with an intense

stare and a built-in bullshit detector.

Something bad happened to Kathy.

Is that why I’m in this bookstore? To ﬁ nd a miracle that

will save her?

I remember that I walked away from the crime scene, down

the street, past my car. I kept walking. Patterns, connections.

They seemed all around me. The red of the blood was a few

shades darker than the red of a stop sign, cousin to the red

of a stoplight. I passed a neon sign, stared at its reﬂ ection

in a storefront window. The spaces between the neon

iII

seemed to carry the real message. I wandered. The streets were a maze, the maze

was an alphabet, the alphabet was the curves and furrows of the human brain.

TRANSCRIPT PAUSES; SUBJECT LOSES COHERENCE.

KG UTILIZES PSYCHOKINETIC MASSAGE TECHNIQUE

TO RE-ESTABLISH CONTACT.

TRANSCRIPT CONTINUES:

“Jack,” Michael says to me. I turn away from the bookshelf, from the books

I was pretending to be interested in. “The rain is over. A good omen, don’t you

think?” I glance at the window. The patter of rain against the glass has stopped. The

sun must be out, because some light is ﬁ ltering through the colored panels. There’s

a pattern of colored squares and triangles that borders the window’s edges, and the

pattern is somewhat familiar. I realize I’ve been in this room before. Several times.

Staking it out. For hours. Waiting. For what? For whom? The saint?

“This saint,” I say to Michael. “How do you suppose he decides who gets a miracle and

who goes home with a bag full of used paperbacks?”

He considers my words. “Perhaps he only helps the neediest? I don’t know, Jack. Perhaps he

can peer into the minds of those who come for help, and see who is most deserving.”

Peer into their minds. Kathy used to call me a mind-reader. Especially after — after —

“You look lost, Jack.” Michael is watching my hands. My ﬁ ngers are twitching, making

shapes, as if I’m using sign language. I don’t know sign language.

“Have you ever been lost, Michael? I mean, really lost?” As I ask him the question,

I’m reliving that night of heat and blood. Signs were all around me as I walked the

streets, and I followed them: an arrow spray painted on a brick wall, the outstretched

hand of a sleeping wino, the scent marks of stray dogs. And eventually I came to a ﬁ s-

sure, a deep sinkhole, a canyon that cut straight across the grid of avenues

and streets. I stepped to the edge, peered over the torn asphalt and jutting

sewer pipes. I could not see to the bottom of that blackness. There was no

sound. It seemed, as I stared into the deep dark, that I was not staring at a

chasm at all. For a moment, it seemed I was standing in a morgue,

staring at a cadaver laid out on a cold steel slab. The body

had been sliced nearly in half across its chest, a deep cut

that severed everything: muscle, nerve, bone, heart, throat. I

stared at the slash and felt like I was staring at the wounded

body of every human being who’d ever lived, who ever

would live.

“And then I was at the edge of the pit again, and, for

the ﬁ rst time, I looked across it.”

“What? What did you say, Jack?” Michael turns

from the shelf of books he’d been inspecting. A

10-year-old boy glances toward me as he exits the

room. I didn’t realize I’d spoken aloud. How much

had I said?

“Tell me something, Michael. What sort of miracle

are you hoping for? What wish are you going to make,

if this genie you’re after actually shows up?”

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