Tribunal...Part 2

“I find it hard to believe that that thing has a mother.” I must admit, I was beginning to see certain similarities here in how I had been responding to Murphy and how Ravyn was responding to me. I grew silent after this comment, intent on listening to the information they had.

Raven turned a beet red as her anger showed on her face. No one else even bothered to try to talk while she recovered and started again. “Dammit man! That’s the kind of thinking that will get you torn limb from limb and eaten if you go down there unprepared again.”

I held up my hands in surrender. “OK, I’m sorry. Tel me what you know or suspect about this thing and its mother. I can’t afford another draw like my last meeting with Junior there.”

With my last comment, she seemed to calm slightly, her color began to return to normal. “It’s about time you gained some wisdom. I’m going to ask the Frau to tell you what she knows at this point. I have a student to counsel.” She stepped back into the line and turned to face Jasmine. I could see poor Jasmine flinch as Ravyn turned her anger on her.

There was a part of me that wanted to interfere with the tongue lashing that Jasmine was sure to receive at this point, but something stopped me from doing so. Perhaps it was the realization that she was as hard headed as I was and that she would only learn some lessons through taking some lumps. If she was going to study what appeared to be a pretty dangerous business of magick under Ravyn, then I darn sure wanted her to respect and listen to her instructor. Instead I turned slightly to face the Frau who was now stepping forward, I did my best to ignore the only half-whispered admonitions that my daughter was now receiving.

The Frau cleared her throat, also doing her best to ignore the situation to her right. “The story of Beowulf, as it has come down to us, has it that Grendel was of a race of creatures that was descended from Cain. In a translation by Dr. David Breeden, the story goes like this:
He was of a race of monsters
exiled from mankind by God--
He was of the race of Cain,
that man punished for
murdering his brother.
From that family comes
all evil beings--
monsters, elves, zombies
Also the giants who
fought with God and got
repaid with the flood.”

She stopped at that point. Her voice had taken on a strange, almost musical quality that had me enthralled as she had recited it, leaving me wanting to hear more told in that same way, even if the author (or the translator) had thrown zombies into the same boat with this thing. But hey, I’m a New Age kind of zombie, I’m all sensitive and stuff...well sometimes, anyway.

After a moment, she resumed speaking. (See, I was being good now, I didn’t interupt this time!) “The story is quite long, but it also tells of how this creature was able to kill and devour stout warriors, even thirty at a time, because its skin had been enchanted to be impervious to keen edges and human weapons. The only way that the hero of the story was able to defeat him was to use his hands and his own God-given strength. He wrestled with the beast and held him so firm that Grendel basically tore his own arm and shoulder out in order to escape to its home before it died.

“Of course, this story is heavily laced with Christian references and has probably been altered from its original form in that context, since it was transmitted orally for hundreds of years before being written down. What we want you to understand though Rusty, is that this thing will be extremely difficult to slay, and that it is most likely acting on behalf of its mother. It will probably be immune to standard weapons of this era, like firearms, and may well heal at an exceptionally fast pace. The stories we do have all show that Grendel’s mother is more powerful and more fearsome than Grendel himself, but that she seems to remain hidden until he is harmed or slain. The research that we, the ORC’s, have done seem to show us that this Grendel thing feeds off of the death and esruction that it causes, while its mother seems to feed off of the fear and terror that her son causes.”

Cerrydwen stepped forward at this point, “We also think that this is why this pair has chosen New York for its lair at this time. It is a huge city full of fresh meat and of course it has been deeply wounded with the September 11 attacks. The fear and trauma of that event probably brought them in the first place.”

Now it was time to speak up about my encounter with the Spirit of the firefighter and the images I had seen when I visited Ground Zero. So I told them everything I had seen and experienced there at that sight, especially of the images of the Grendel-thing emerging from the smoke and dust after the first tower collapsed.

All of them stood silently and listened as I told them of those images and the words that the firefighter had spoken to me. I then told them of the complete encounter I had had with the Gendel-thing, and how I remembered the battle playing out. Finally, I also told them everything I had learned about the victims and how items had been missing from some of the victims homes from the FBI. The Frau’s face showed a keen interest, an eagerness to acquire new bits for her own tales perhaps. Cerrydwen had her usual fierce look, but somehow it seemed slightly softer, almost sympathetic. Ravyn listened with hard eyes and a tightly clenched jaw. Jasmine’s eyes were red from tears and looked chastened.

When I was finished, Ravyn stepped forward again. “Clearly our worst fears about why this pair has come to New York are fully realized now. We have to deal with them now. Rusty, this is not something you can handle on your own.” Her face had softened somewhat as she said this, almost imploring me at the end there not go again on my own.

“Well, at the moment, I am waiting for a repair team to come and fix me up somewhat before I go down there again. That will give you some time to send some help, if you know of anyone you want to send. But you need to tell them all of this shit that I am just finding out, I don’t want anyone joining me that isn’t aware of the dangers they will face.”

The Frau stepped up again. “Rusty, we will let you know who is coming and when to expect them shortly. But before we end this council, I wanted to warn you about something. Whatever, you do, don’t reach out Spiritually to this Grendel-thing or especially its mother-she feeds on emotions like fear and on the spiritual energy of her son’s victims. Grendel has been hunting down and feeding on fellow Casters, so it likely has some major protections against the kinds of powers that many Casters possess.”