Arthur Black was disappointed when Erica left, but he understood. It was brutal; he’d be terrified himself if he wasn’t a ball of cold rage. That body wasn’t Suzanna Blue, it was a mockery. She was his oldest and closest friend, the most intense, most alive person he’d ever met; this is a broken, empty shell. He failed her, and he can’t even punish the people who did this.
At least… not yet. He considers his resources: a license plate number, a *clever* vicious streak, and single-minded focus. Soon, he has several pairs of well-made cuffs, a fancy bondage gag that should prevent anything more than quiet humming, an address, and a name - Thomas Johnson. He takes a couple classes of jujitsu to refresh long-ago practice in dirty fighting, plans his approach, and sets out to get a hostage.
It’s an anticlimax, really. He sees the man pulling up to his house in the same car as before, and a throat punch later he’s gagged, then bound and in Art’s car (which does *not* have plates).
Here’s a gray cement garage, and a crappy recording studio on the ground floor. And then inside it, a metal chair. Arthur smiles a vicious,toothy smile as he shoves his victim inside and says, with false cheer, “Schmuck, meet chair. Chair, meet handcuffs. Everyone, meet soundproofing. Isn’t it wonderful?” He pauses and stares right into the man’s face as he continues, “Another thing which is wonderful is secretive organizations that don’t want public legal attention. And being unconstrained by moral obligations. I’m pretty happy with both of those, just now.”
Arthur pulls up a second chair, and relaxes into it as he switches to a more conversational tone, “Here is what is going to happen: You’re going to tell me everything I want to know about how the music magic works. Including some things I know already, so I can check if you’re lying to me. You will do this all in writing, as you will remain gagged until I’m done with you. If you do not cooperate, I will hurt you. I’m not an experienced torturer, but I assure you I can make up for it in enthusiasm. And I learn quickly.”
Art stands, and surveys the wide eyes and tense posture of the bound man. “I’m going to get my guitar case. When I get back, we’ll begin immediately,” he says as he leaves, and thinks to himself *Good, let him stew a bit.*
The guitar case doesn’t contain a guitar, of course. It has half a toolbox, and some recordings to play in the studio. And the paper and pen, of course. Ballpoint; wouldn’t want his hostage hurting himself. As he returns to the room, it’s clear the man was trying to get loose from his bonds or sing, but the gag has restricted his throat and he hasn’t been finding any success.
Art walks up behind the man and says flippantly, “So, ready to write? Here’s a notebook, try not to bleed on it.”
To his mild surprise, the man starts immediately. He stops after four words: “God will punish you.” Art frowns, then pulls the chair around to face him. “I doubt that very much, Mr. Johnson. As you doubt my seriousness, apparently. Maybe this will get it across.” He steps back and queues up a backing track in the studio speakers, then comes back to face Johnson, staring closely at him as he begins to sing with the track,
*“No one knows what it’s like / To be the bad man / To be the sad man / Behind blue eyes..”*
Arthur’s eyes slowly fade from brown to blue, and in Johnson’s mind he starts to feel a sense of anger.
*“No one knows what it’s like / To feel these feelings / Like I do / And I blame you!”*
Johnson feels the sense more intensely. A cold rage, hard and pointed, with him at the tip.
*“But my dreams / They aren’t as empty / As my conscience seems to be”*
Changing character, Johnson sees an image: a short-haired woman in a room, brighter than this one, with a gag of different design but similar purpose, cuts all over her body and eyes vacant. The woman is unfamiliar, but the scene isn’t; he’s seen the aftermath of failed Hymnal training in rooms like that before.
*“I have powers, only lonely / My love is vengeance / That’s never free”
The anger surges back, insistently clinging to the broken woman. It changes in character, and he’s disquieted when he places the feeling; his son was hurt by a bully on a playground, when he was young, and this was what he felt then, but now magnified tenfold and without any trace of restraint.
*“No one knows what it’s like / To be hated / To be fated / To telling only lies. No one bites back as hard / On their anger / None of my pain and woe / Can show through.”*
The woman fades, but the rage is undiluted. It seems to say ‘And that’s a shame. Here, this is what being hated feels like. (It’s you. You are hated.) And this isn’t the half of it.’
*“But my dreams / They aren’t as empty / As my conscience seems to be // I have powers, only lonely / My love is vengeance / That’s never free.”*
Unlike the first repetition, this shows Johnson another part of his captor’s mind. There is no sense of God here, neither His love nor His justice. There are images of torture in brief flashes, with Johnson himself as the victim, and no trace of guilt attached to the ideas.
After a last drawn-out note, Arthur cuts out and steps back to turn off the track. As he turns back toward Johnson, he says, simply “Still want to leave everything up to God?”.
Johnson sees his eyes again. They’re brown, and hard. Behind those eyes… he feels no connection to God. None at all. He truly would do those things, with no shame. What did you *do* with someone this immoral? He can’t be reasoned with.
He picks up the pen, and Arthur grins. “Thought that might convince you. Good. So, first questions: Can the music magic be taught? Is it voice only, or do instrumentals carry it as well? How common is it?”
Johnson writes silently *You must be born with talent to use it, but training makes larger magic possible and improves reliability. It is voice only, the instruments are irrelevant. It is not common, but it is rare for anyone to discover their talent unassisted so no one knows quite how rare it is.* None of these statements is entirely false, but none is true either.
Arthur watches Johnson very closely as he writes. He’s pretty sure the man doesn’t realize quite how much of his feelings show on his face. How do people this inept at secrecy get recruited for a magic conspiracy? “You’re lying to me,” he says pleasantly, “and I don’t appreciate it. Want to fix that, or is it time to get my hands dirty?”
*It’s true, I swear!* writes Johnson frantically.
“Messy it is, then. Hmm, where to start? Nails under the fingernails seems good, but I can only do that to the one hand. On the other hand, you have toenails as well. I didn’t have time to get a blowtorch, so that’s a few things out. I could just take knives to your back, but that’s so *pedestrian*.” As he monologues, he rifles through the guitar case, picking up tools as he mentions them and waving them in clear view of Johnson. “Of course, I could jump straight to threatening your nutsack. But that’s moving pretty fast, we hardly know each other. No, I think the fingers are the way to go.”
He stands up with a fistful of nails and a hammer. With a tight smile that extends to a giltter in his eyes, he grabs Johnson’s left hand in his own and says, “Here’s a first taste. Let’s see how stubborn you are now.” Then he brings the hammer down, violently. The scream is softened by the gag, but the convulsion and expression on Johnson’s face make up for it. He spreads out the fingers and repeats the blow in five more places. He continues, grimly, “Congratulations, you now have several more bones than me. Ready to correct your testimony?”
Johnson looks shaken and shakily begins writing again. *We do know how common talent is; one in a hundred has the ability. The instruments are an important memory aid, the tune must stay very close to the old song. Small amounts can be taught…*
Arthur interrupts, “Now you’re just showing bad manners. That’s no more true than the first version. Do you doubt that I can check, here? Let me reassure you.”
He steps back to the sound controls and puts in a new backing track. “You know, I’m really on a Who kick today, I don’t know why. Well, it works for me, I suppose.”
A messy guitar lick starts, and he starts to sing along.
*“I know you’ve deceived me, now here’s a surprise”*
The man picks up the pen and notebook as he meets Johnson’s gaze.
*“I know that you have 'cause there’s magic in my eyes”*
Johnson sees his captor’s eyes flash and feels a sensation of digging into his mind.
*“I can see for miles and miles and miles and miles and miles / Oh yeah”*
He is looking closely at the things Johnson has written, hovering over them with the pen.
*“If you think that I don’t know about the little tricks you’ve played / And never see you when deliberately you put things in my way”*
Like the first song, the man is clearly singing at him, but this time his focus isn’t on him. His fingers dart, putting marks on the notebook’s pages.
*“Well, here’s a poke at you / You’re gonna choke on it too / You’re gonna lose that smile / Because all the while”*
He turns the notebook around and puts it in Johnson’s face. His expression is grimly triumphant. The singing directly in his ears and pain from the broken fingers make it hard to focus, but Johnson screws up his eyes and looks at the page.
*“I can see for miles and miles! / I can see for miles and miles! I can see for miles and miles and miles and miles and miles!”*
Everything he wrote has been underlined or struck through. And, unfailingly, every single lie has a strike through it.
Arthur trails off and turns off the music. “So what have we learned today? 'You *don’t* have to be born with talent to use it, training *does* make larger magic possible and improves reliability. It is *not* voice only, the instruments *are* relevant. Ability *is* common, but it *is* rare for anyone to discover their talent unassisted.’ Hmm, talent is a thing, then, but anyone can use it eventually. Useful. 'Your people *do* know how common talent is, but it’s not one in a hundred. The instruments are an important memory aid, but the tune *doesn’t* have to stay that close to the old song.’ That part I knew, of course; one of the songs where something happened the night your bully boys showed up was a duet arrangement I wrote specially. 'Amounts can be taught’, but not 'small amounts’. Does that mean *anything* can be taught? *Intriguing.* Oh, and you knew that the things you wrote weren’t true, and God will not punish me. Good to know. Thank you ever so much for helping. Are you going to help me more, or will I just be hurting you for my own satisfaction now?”
Johnson doesn’t respond. “Well, I guess I’ll ask again later, shall I? Let’s get to those nails.”
The nails under the fingernails isn’t enough to get him to break, but it doesn’t take much longer. A few shallow slashes with a knife and some creative use of a monkey wrench later, he spills.
Songs have more potential power the better-known they are, but will only ever do something with intense emotions. Johnson’s group - it’s called The Hymnal - tries to restore the status quo of centuries back, when the only songs well known in Europe were religious music; true believers singing these songs were probably responsible for most of the miracles ever seen.
Natural talents are rare enough, and natural magic usually subtle enough, that they can catch most of them before it starts to spread. Few people have talent to produce magic spontaneously, but anyone can pick up the skill. Training this skill is done by contagion; perform more strongly near others, and they’ll catch the ability.
The magic is mostly good at subtle effects, but nearly anything mental is included in that. Changing how someone’s mind works is something of an exception; it isn’t that hard to do, but gives massive feedback if it’s resisted, hurting the singer and the victim, and this was what killed Suzy. She was tortured to reduce resistance, which isn’t universal but is standard if conversion doesn’t work easily, but she had a strong enough sense of self-integrity that it didn’t take. Johnson is emphatically insistent that he wasn’t involved with killing her, but under pressure it’s clear that he’s done it to others many times.
This leaves Art with a dilemma; what does he do with Johnson now? He’s gotten everything he was looking for about magic, and loose details about distribution of Hymnal agents (concentrated in big cities and religious areas). And he has a potential plan, now; he can make any musician able to help him, and he knows a lot of musicians. But what does he do with his kidnapped hostage? He won’t hurt him more, but he can’t let him go. After a a handful of minutes, he decides.
“Johnson, are you listening? I’m done asking you questions. I’m not a sadist; I have nothing more to gain from hurting you, and you’re not the target of my revenge, not any more. But I also can’t let you go back to your group. The pragmatics of the situation say I have to kill you, but there are better and worse ways to die. And I only have access to slow, painful ones. So instead, I’m going to sing you the first part of a Requiem Mass. 'Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine’ and so on. Which should give you a painless death, if it works. And - though for what you’ve done, you don’t deserve this - if your God exists, it will probably send you to Him. But if you resist me on this, I’m guessing it probably won’t work. And I *will* kill you anyway.”
Johnson looks incredibly worn down, now. Being confronted with the things he’s done, and feeling the pain of smething milder than what he’s many times inflicted on Hymnal converts, he finds it difficult to hold onto a desire to live. *I assent.*, he writes. *Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.*
Arthur’s rage faded into the background well before this, leaving only a grim sadness. He picks a simple arrangement of the Requiem Introit, channeling his grief for his dearest friend into a forced deportation of his enemy. In barely-understood Latin, he sings:
*“Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine,
et lux perpetua luceat eis.
Te decet hymnus, Deus, in Sion,
et tibi reddetur votum in Jerusalem.
Exaudi orationem meam,
ad te omnis care veniet.
Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine,
et lux perpetua luceat eis.”*
By the final line of the stanza, Johnson’s eyes have closed and the blood drained from his skin. Switching to a different tune, Art sings a snatch of a Moody Blues song (*“But, time will tell, of stars that fell, / A million years ago. / Memories can never take you back, home, sweet home. / You can never go home anymore.”*) and the body rots away rapidly. Soon enough, he’s cleared out of the space and driven out of the city in a new van. He’s headed north, to call old friends and bandmates up to meet him somewhere the Hymnal doesn’t watch. It’s time he finally started that metal band. He even knows the name already: Black Art and Blue’s Army.