Page 315 - Hunter - The Vigil

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C CHAPTER FIVE: STORYTELLING
Veteran hunters give this advice: once a wizard has his And you signal. You swerve left, still perfect calm as the
evil eye on you, do what you’d do with any other danger- car tumbles down the hill and through the trees. And the last
ous stranger. Get out in front of as many people as possible, thing you hear, right before that branch goes through your
and draw some attention to yourself. By some stroke of luck, skull, is that smoky, comfy voice.
wizardry doesn’t work so well in public. When mages try to ...WRFD, Radio Free Death, signing off.
use their abilities in front of the general public, higher forces Listen to the Radio
sometimes try to strike them down. Even been known to save The Voice of the Afterlife wants its audience to cross

hunters the first time or two. Though others conspiratorially over. Really. Things are better here. Outside the physical
whisper that magic sometimes works in ways you can’t see, as world of heartbreak and love and pain. Peaceful. Ever have a
invisible as a breath of poison gas; strange coincidences occur, breakup, then hear that one song that tells the whole story?
such as someone flicking a cigarette onto a trickled stream of That’s what it’s like, listening to Radio Free Death. And the

gas (whoosh!) or a witch whose lottery tickets always come razor or the pill bottle or whatever will hold the same attrac-
up winners. Caution’s still a good idea, though, since death by tion it did that one wonderful awful moment.
magic’s a bad way to go and magic isn’t always flagrant in its The suicide signal strikes a perfect balance between the

witchery. A lunatic witch turns your insides out. A wise one human emotional spectrum and the broadcast regions as-
makes that murder look like natural causes. signed by the FCC. Which really makes it sound like some-
Often, negotiation is the better part of valor. Mages tend thing VALKYRIE or Cheiron would have cooked up as an
to be willing to make bargains, especially if they get some- experiment. Turns out, though, it’s the work of a necromancer
thing out of the deal. Stuck between a witch and a hard place, cult that thought it knew exactly what it was doing.
offer anything. Then start hoping you never get asked for it. Some witches believe their powers come from the ruins
of the towers with which their ancestors laid siege to Heaven.
Cabal: Radio Free Death Correspondence plays a big role in their ritual, which brings
Late night, not many cars on the road and not much on us to the brainchild of Carl Hager. Hager was the kind of kid
the radio. You’ve got miles to go before you sleep, and somehow who would always design bigger than he could build. As a kid,
you end up tuned into one of the jazz stations. Jazz fades to blues he always needed more Legos. As an engineering student, he
and the highway rhythm evens out to fit, and you start to think always needed somebody else to work out the pesky details.

about your own problems. About him, about how it shouldn’t The story of his initiation as a necromancer doesn’t really
be that way. About how you could have done better by him or bear repeating; let’s just say that it was a difficult time, and his

better than him or both at once. The horns and smoky voices girlfriend had recently crossed over.
are keeping you company on the long drive and, well, guess Carl knew from other wizards that there was a basic
there’s room for your sorrows in the passenger seat. framework to the spirit realms, and he started to approach it
And that’s when the DJ comes on, smooth and comfort- his own way; as a structural model. The forces involved were
ing like the crackle on a vinyl record. esoteric, of course, but they could be modeled. Provided he
...and I guess he’s not the only out there missing somebody, am I found someone to do the math. That was Amy Winter, a con-
right? I’d like to thank that caller, and let anybody out there feeling that firmed technocrat and Carl’s link to that ambiguously defined

ol’ ache in their heart know they’re not alone. Lot of good men and mystical brotherhood.
women out there, and we’ve all done some wrong things, caused some The project took shape over a few years: the Watchtower
pain. And that’s all right. Let’s just share that. I’ve got a request from of Lead, Stronghold of Death and Unending Peace, could be
Cindi out in Bethesda, and she wants her man to know... modeled in a primitive, three-dimensional reality...and then the
Some more tracks. Maybe the occasional schmaltzy pop real thing could be superimposed on creation. Instead of scraping
number in there, but it’s not so out of place, not among the magic in bits and pieces from higher realms, Carl, Amy and their
songs about heartbreak and regret, and maybe you never re- growing cult could tap mystic power right from the source.
ally gave it a chance before. You start to wonder if you can They drove a few miles out of town and reconstructed
set things right. He won’t take you back, no, and she won’t an abandoned radio transmitter. The project was large, and
forgive you, but, you know, maybe... it required floating some dubious checks to some confused

...late, I know, and I hope you don’t mind me saying I think contractors, but it got finished. One appropriately dark and

God’s with each and every one of us tonight. Not being pushy, but, stormy night, they held a ritual in the old control room, 10
well, we could all use a little nudge, couldn’t we? When we can just feet underground. They fired up every dial, they chanted their

keep coasting, or we can take things into our own hands. Do a little words of power...
something to make the world better. And maybe stop the pain... ...and it worked. Within the established parameters, any-
He’s right. They didn’t deserve what you did. The tears way. The transmitter was an accurate model of the Watch-
are stinging, must mean they just started. And the lights are tower of Death...but the Watchtower itself is still no more
going by, one by one, the radio guy’s right. You’re just coast- than a ruin. A lonely, hungry ruin. The five witches became

ing. Your headlights refl ect off the end of the guardrail. part of the conduit, with all the power they could ever want,
...a little nudge from, well, you don’t want to hear me talk but only the tower’s primitive needs to guide them, and only
about the Lord. A higher power, maybe. And I think he wants you their human shells to channel it.
to take that leap. Go ahead.
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