But as engrossing as all of this was, it was only something in Gosunkugi’s recent history that made him useful to Anthracite: in his latest attempts to win the heart of Akane, he had recently started practicing voodoo. Granted, the boy wasn’t very good at it (especially since what he was trying to practice was an amalgam of several Hollywood bastardizations of the real religion), but his investigations into the arcane gave the General a foothold to work with, since the boy was obviously willing to believe anything that would help him get the girl. On top of that, when utilized correctly, voodoo could be quite useful as a form of offensive magic—the spells that formed the basis for voodoo were closely related to the ones Beryl had used for her magical brainwashing, and even Anthracite was willing to admit that they were extremely effective.
What Gosunkugi was currently trying to do, however, was not effective at all. He had a bunch of candles, some mosquito-repelling tiki torches (he figured the repellent could double as incense), and a crudely-made voodoo doll, and he was wearing a top hat with a skull on it and saying things that sounded like they might be incantations—but it wasn’t working; Akane had still not rushed to his house and thrown himself at his feet, vowing to be his love slave. Perhaps he needed an actual token from her, instead of just taping a blurry Polaroid to the voodoo doll—he wasn’t sure. It didn’t help either that the only references he’d consulted thus far was a badly-dubbed version of Live and Let Die and a music video by The Prodigy.
“Dammit, what am I doing wrong?”
“Pretty much everything, actually.” Gosunkugi jumped at the unexpected answer to his question.
“Who’s there?”
“Someone who obviously knows more about voodoo than you. In fact,” the voice continued as a man in a dark military uniform stepped into view, “if you keep doing it that way, all you’ll end up with is a bunch of pissed-off Iwa—they tend to dislike it when jerks base all of their assumptions on pop culture.”
Gosunkugi didn’t know how to react—he’d made sure that all the doors in his house were locked before he went up to his room to try this stuff out, and he didn’t have a clue how this gaijin had managed to get in without opening any doors or windows. So, he responded with a mix of fear and confusion: “Wh-what’s an Iwa?”
The man say down on the frail teenager’s bed and sighed. “Kid, if you don’t know what an Iwa is, you’ve got no business messing around with this stuff. I’d ask why you’re doing this, but from that weird thing on the floor that I can only assume is supposed to be a voodoo doll, you’re after a girl who you can’t get, and you’re willing to go to desperate measures to get her. Am I right?”
“Yes.”
“As I thought. Well then, my friend, suppose I told you there was a way to ensnare her that didn’t run the risk of having to face down a mob of angry African spirits?”
Gosunkugi’s ears perked up at this—he’d do anything for a chance at Akane. However, he’d been burned too many times by Nabiki to take something like this at face value. “How do I know you’re for real?”
The man looked thoughtful for a while, as though he was trying to think of the best way to prove his worth to his new acquaintance. After a few seconds, he got a flash of inspiration, and suddenly produced a rose ex nihilo.
Gosunkugi was stunned for a few seconds, but soon cleared his head. “Come on, you’ve got to be kidding me! Any stage magician could pull that off!”
The man then flicked his wrist, and the rose disappeared from his hand—and imbedded itself in the steel safe where the loner kept his best photographs of his dream girl. “Go ahead—take a close look. You’ll see that that’s a real rose, and that it is indeed armor-piercing.”
“Whoa.”
The man merely smirked in response. “That’s just the beginning of what I can show you.”
“And if I do this, it will impress Akane, and she’ll like me?”
“That, or if she doesn’t, I can show you other ways to ‘convince’ her.”
Gosunkugi was so enraptured by the thought of gaining the hand of Akane Tendo that he totally missed the disturbing inflection that the man put on the word ‘convince.’ “What do I have to do in return?”
“Nothing much. I only ask that you provide a service for me—it won’t even be that difficult, and in fact, it will probably help you as you’re learning from me.”
It was a classic temptation, and the impressionable youth fell for it hook, line, and sinker. “It’s a deal. When can we start?”
The two of them shook hands. “It’s good to be working with you, son—and we can start right away, if you’d like.”
“You bet I would!” the young man said excitedly. As the man opened the door to his closet (which seemed a lot darker than her remembered), something occurred to him. “By the way, uh, sir, what’s your name?”
“You can call me Max, Gosunkugi—and no, I won’t explain how I knew your name just yet. Now follow me—we have work to do.”
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(Posted Tue, 21 Feb 2006 20:36)
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