Gravedancer

EPILOGUE.

"In the lab, Mr. Jackson immediately asked to take the catalyst. During the waiting, Mr. Jackson inquired about the name of the laboratory; I delivered the standard Paradise Lost and William Blake recount. Then the catalyst was done, and Mr. Jackson took it." Alex sighed. "After roughly thirty seconds, Mr. Jackson displayed signs of vomiting. I managed to grab a basket and he vomited into it; it appears that he vomited the catalyst by whole. The conclusion by far is that Mr. Jackson's body rejected the catalyst, but as to the reason, I am still yet to find out. However, based on alchemical equations, it can logically infer to one thing – the catalyst is less perfect than Mr. Jackson. That is the report, Master."

John Dee smiled. "Very good, Alex," he said. "Very eloquently put, if I may. You did not miss any detail. I am still impressed by that memory of yours. However, you are correct. You are yet to find out the reason." John's eyes flared. "What if I tell you that you will find out now?"

Alex felt that he would be walking a very thin thread from that point on. "Sir?"

John laughed. "Oh, Alex, worry not! I am not to befall upon you punishment or harm or such things! I will only help you understand, Alex, why Mr. Jackson's body rejected the catalyst."

Alex gulped. "Yes, Sir, I am truthfully puzzled."

John smiled. "You are correct, Alex, when you put that the logic infers that Mr. Jackson is more perfect than the catalyst. I know you must be confused, for he took a Level Thirteen. Level Thirteen! Can you even believe that? No one has ever taken that amount and survive, let alone be perfected."

Alex nodded. "I also responded with disbelief the first time, Sir, but then the lie detector again found his words truthful."

John nodded back. "Because he was being truthful. I really did ask him to take the catalyst. I really did tell him to take Level Thirteen. Do you know what feat he has done that prompts me upon that decision?"

Alex shook his head. John threw a vial of liquid to the distance between the throne and Alex, and as soon as the vial broke, the liquid inside it began to glow and rearranged themselves into codes – codes that only the Alchemists knew how to decipher.

Alex read the codes. With each passing word, his eyebrows knitted deeper together – until he finally reached the end of the codes. His eyes widened. "Impossible," he said. "That is...he was..."

"I know, Alex, I know," John said. "And yes, he is a late bloomer. But all that is true. He did cast a massive spectrocide spell in the Witch House, cleansing the ghosts there for good. And he did that with no previous experience with magic, at all. Then during an encounter with a killer ghoul in Disaster, which I'm still investigating, he accidentally terraformed Calamity."

"Leading to the kidnapped teenagers from the Witch House waiting party," Alex continued in a soft murmur. John nodded.

"And led to the Siege of Monsters in general, which he also cleaned up single-handedly. I assume you encountered him once more after that?"

"Yes," Alex said. "His friends inquired for me to help protect his body while he performed astral projection, and his projection purportedly left to the monsters' realm in order to execute a Homeforcer spell there to force the monsters back into their world."

John nodded understandingly. "Even with no body, he could still cast a Homeforcer spell with strong enough influence to draw back all the monsters and all the mists to the monsters' realm. That just adds to the list that shows his potentials – and those aren't even his true potentials yet."

Alex was awestruck. "So the catalyst...?"

"Was less perfect than he is, yes."

Alex looked again at the glowing codes on the ground. A late bloomer? Performing all those feats? It was hard to believe. Too hard to believe, in fact. Even an unusually powerful new bloomer shouldn't be that powerful, let alone a late bloomer.

But spectrocide on the Witch House?

Terraformation of Calamity?

Homeforcer via astral projection?

And all of that without having even believed in magic until he was thrust upon this world?

What kind of a sick joke was that?

The kind that isn't a joke, Alex realized. "Sir?"

"Yes?"

Alex reread the report again. It felt so unreal. "What is he?"

Master John Dee smiled a triumphant smile, a smile that he always had each time he performed a perfect check mate. It was the smile that was always there when he won a fight, or when his clan achieved something amazing.

It was the smile that told Alex that he had asked the right question.

"Tell me, Alex," John Dee began. "Are you familiar with the term Gravedancer?"

END