An attempt to thwart Annabelle’s Aegis(Thomas)

Date: 2025-09-16 01:25

(An attempt to thwart Annabelle’s Aegis(Thomas):Thomas)

[Tue Sep 16 2025]

In Admin Office/span>/spanThe administrative office occupies a corner of the ground floor, its walls
painted in institutional cream that has yellowed slightly near the ceiling. A
heavy wooden desk dominates the center of the room, its surface covered with
neat stacks of paperwork, manila folders, and an old rotary phone alongside a
modern computer. Metal filing cabinets line one wall, their drawers labeled
with fading typewritten cards. The single window overlooks a portion of the
campus quad, though the view is partially obscured by thick ivy that has
crept across the glass. Fluorescent lights hum overhead, occasionally
flickering in a way that causes shadows to shift unexpectedly. The floor is
covered in worn linoleum tiles, several of which have begun to curl at the
edges. A water stain spreads across one corner of the ceiling tiles, its
edges darkened to brown. The radiator beneath the window clanks periodically,
producing more noise than heat. Near the door to Salstonstall Memorial House,
the air grows noticeably cooler, and papers sometimes rustle despite the
absence of any draft./span>/spanIt is about 60F(15C) degrees. The mist is heaviest At Birch and Madison/span>/spanLooking over the information herself after sending it out to the two of them, Teagan considers. “So, my guess is that… Based on conversations I’ve had with her… Well, she thinks the Faculty here is abusive of us students in… every which way of the term. So it looks like several rumors have gone out. That you… took — or I guess are taking — an unpaid vacation, though your pay wouldn’t be docked yet if for the one you’re taking. That The Order — people who protect others, I think is the gist I know? — is going after the school for the claimed abuses… I don’t understand the lessened violence part.” She spreads her hands absently, phone in one. “That is the best I can think of as to what’s going on. This is why I didn’t give it any stock when I heard it. None of the rumors really… fit?”

“Well,” Thomas tells Constance. “I don’t really know what is happening in Redstone — or All Saints? I’m not clear. But I can see that something has been done here,” he says, nodding to Teagan. “And so we’re going to fix it,” he says. “Somewhere here surely are my pay records… Miss Lawson, can you start looking through the files? We’re rather old-fashioned,” he says. “Somewhere there is going to be a routing form,” he explains. “This is –strictly speaking– not in protocol, but asking the Provost to intervene would take too long.” He nods to Constance. “And probably the door needs to be… watched.”

Constance nods intently, boosting herself off the door to take up a position against the southern wall with her shotgun aimed at the door, wards or no wards that sight would hopefully be intimidating enough to dissuade any would-be interference.

“Part of… rumor nowadays is, well, bullshit?” Teagan tries to explain as she looks toward the filing cabinets. The computer, sure, absolutely. That would have been *great*. Filing cabinets? One of the top students in the CompSci department and they want her to be a secretary from 1968? The woman huffs a stray strand of hair out of her face, but glances over toward Thomas and with a sigh, continues.

Well, starts to. It’s almost like she’s seeing that shotgun for the first time. Or maybe the fact that it’s being aimed at the door. “What if the… Provost comes in?” She sidles to the other side of the desk, toward the cabinets. “Uhm. An…aaaanyway. More people out there are like Kai than not. They say whatever the fuck comes to mind and usually, it’s on purpose. If you say eighteen ridiculous things and two reasonable ones, people are likely to believe the reasonable ones, correct? Well, what’s reasonable in all of-” a gesture with her phone.

“A Professor got a paycut for unapproved vacation time.”

“I do have a confession to make, though,” Thomas tells Teagan once she begins to search. “Once we find the file…” His eyes fix on Teagan. “That’s when I am going to really need your help, Miss Lawson.” For his part, the librarian is beginning to clear off the top of a desk. “You see: I am not an accountant,” he shares. “But I am a magician, and I know the law of sympathy.” He pauses. “The file, Miss Lawson. I imagine it is in that cabinet over there,” he says.

“I-” Teagan would have gotten to that cabinet eventually, it’s true. Unfortunately, they aren’t in the expected sort of alphabetical order. It’s not alphabetical by last name. It’s alphabetical by Discipline. Then under Dean. Then sub-department. Then department. Then finally by Professor. Likely done by one of the building poltergeists at some point and no one bothered to change it back. Or maybe it’s been that way all along. So being directed to the right cabinet? It helps. “I don’t know how magic would help with a payroll problem.”

Not that she knows how magic would help with much of anything, technically. But a banking problem in particular, it’d seem. She does surface with the file at last and rifles through. She’s polite enough, at least, to not read anything else. At least not while he’s watching. It might behoove the man to make sure the file isn’t here later. “Here it is,” she says finally, holding the necessary paperwork out.

“I’m going to need you to lie down,” Thomas tells Teagan, taking the file. “On the desk there,” he says, indicating where he has cleared it off. “Do you know how the law of sympathy works, Miss Lawson? The law of correspondence?”

Constance takes a deep breath as she fidgets in place. “If the Provost walks in then he can explain why his best fuckin’ professor’s getting screwed over,” she crassly mutters. It’s likely nothing she’s saying is as concerning as what Thomas is.

You’d be surprised. Or maybe not, in this city. Teagan is told to lie down and… she just looks at Thomas briefly with big eyes. Trusting one as she nods and moves to the desk, setting down her things before going to lie down on the desk proper. “Vaguely. I’ve… heard about it. The law of sympathy, at least, yes. Like voodoo, right?”

“Like voodoo,” Thomas tells Teagan. As he lies down, Thomas crosses to her. “You have a connection to the Celebrants,” he tells her. He looks up at Constance. “Can you bind her hands and her feet to the desk?” he says. “Sometimes… Even with the best intent, they thrash a little.” A beat. “Lay still, Miss Lawson,” he instructs.

glances over at Constance for the woman to bind Teagan down.

Thomas glances over at Constance for the woman to bind Teagan down.

Constance walks over sighing as she reaches into her tactical pack and gets some zipties. “I don’t have like, silk rope or anything,” she murmurs as she follows Thomas’ orders. “It’ll have to do.”

“I suppose I’d blame whoever does payroll rather than the Provost. I doubt he does that sort of thing himself. Or check it himself.” Teagan is making light conversation. Partially because while she’s doing this for Thomas, it is also very, very awkward. At least she didn’t wear the rather short skirt she had on at bookclub! This outfit has some very decent jeans, thank you very much. She takes a deep breath, trying to calm herself when he mentions trashing? a little? “I don’t…” It’s the zipties especially that seem to concern her and she does apparently want to jerk away at *that* but as she mentioned a bit earlier: Constance could easily snap someone her size in half so there is a certain level of terror at the woman who seems twice her height keeping her still.

“So this record is — not helpful,” Thomas explains to Teagan. “I’m not an accountant,” he says. “But I am a sorcerer, a necromancer, and this is a tie to whoever perpetrated this fraud,” he says. “And you, too, are connected to them: so together,” he says. “Together they will allow me to summon ghosts to plague whoever it is that did this,” he says. “And -that- will solve the issue, in terror and darkness in the night.” He sets the paper on Teagan’s chest, now, stepping back to begin to chant.

“You don’t need to be an accountant?” But Teagan is not actually certain about that. Just because she’s good with computers doesn’t mean she’s good with money. There’s a reason the advisor that oversees her scholarship also oversees dispersal of any funds. The zipties, however, have made her rather more uncomfortable with this whole thing. It’s gone from ‘okay I’m helping Thomas’ to ‘I feel really trapped and I’ve felt kinda unsafe for several days now.’ “Look… maybe… maybe you can just… can this be more of a magic lesson instead? I- I can’t really learn like this?” And then she feels something and a chill goes through her. “Please, Hale?” Her voice rises a bit in pitch.

“This is a magic lesson,” Thomas tells Teagan. “This is what magic is, Miss Lawson.” Something seems to be swirling around the girl bound to the table — ghosts, swirling around, diving in and out of Teagan’s body. Each time, they pass through her — leaving behind some terrible chill. “Magic is about transgression,” he tells her. “And so if it seems as I am transgressing upon you — I am. That is magic,” he says. “But it will soon be over.”

Constance nods. “I’m assuming I was invited along in case you didn’t cooperate so I could threaten to snap your spine,” she cheerfully remarks towards Teagan. “That’s actually my main job, although I rarely need to do it because Hale’s just so damn persuasive. I assure you, none of us want you to die, or anyone to die really, because that means the suffering ends and we can’t harvest it for energy anymore.” That’s. Not better. Probably?

Think about something better. That helps, right? Just like… getting a shot when you’re a kid or something like that. But that doesn’t help because when the first ghost passes through the table, Teagan’s body arches with the sudden, shocking chill of it. She gasps out, whimpering a bit. Her glasses slide up her head a little. “This-” But she barely gets that word out for spirits hitting her body, cutting through the warm clothes she wears and technically… through all the living flesh of her to her own spirit within. Any other attempts at speaking are lost too until the chill is thick enough that she cannot help but let out a scream.

And that’s it — that’s the scream. That’s what draws it out, Thomas looks down at Teagan, and then as the girl screams the spirits seem to circle in tightly. They dive in — they seem to bury themselves inside Teagan — and then the form on Teagan’s chest begins to crisp, turning into ash, only for it — and the ghosts — to disappear. “There we are,” Thomas promises. “Was that so bad?” It was. It was.

Thomas gestures — Teagan’s bindings fall away, and he reaches down to help her up. It’s silent, and almost gentle, if not that he just sacrificed her power for his own benefit.

There is the scream and the scream does not end once the spirits all burrow themselves within her: it amplifies if anything else until Teagan’s voice breaks. It’s in the gasping wake of that silence that everything stops and she lands back against the desk itself with a sob. It was that bad and she’d agree if she wasn’t trying to remember how to breathe. Teagan does accept the help up because she simply does not know what else to do in the moment. Her glasses askew, she just breaks down crying and does so against Thomas. This time not so much for the sake of the crush as for he is simply who is there.