"Jace?" Al absolutely loved being the one whose arms Jace fell imto, but his pre=agmatic, mo-nonsense side mad ehim realize that evenif he had no idea how to go about it, since he loved her (kind of a shock to come to that realization, but there it was), he owed itto her to try and hel[p her figure a way to use her ability, if for no other reason than just to keep her alive and well.
"Seems to me," he said, fighting to be useful to her and to keep an eye on things around them at teh same time, "you need to either figure out how ta swim through this fog you're in, or do the opposite of what Liam said and close up. Sorry to be such a jerk, but you need to make a decision either way; being in control or letting go of it are both conscious decisions. Ain't that kinda like what he said? Now, this door," he continued," I remember me trying to get through it when I was trying to feel what was on t'othe rside, and it kinda threw me back, like it seems to 've done with you. maybe if ya let go of yer ability fer a minute, it'll let ya through?"
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Meri stepped out of teh shadows of an alcove in her room at the club; the space was provided with a makeshift curtain rod from which hung several of the dresses that she wore onstage and on the dance floor. A simple slab of what looked like concrete in the corner, beside which stood a three-sconce candelabra with the half-spent stumps of three candles served as a bed; she spread the bag of dirt that she kept in the not-place on it when she slept - if she slept - in her room. Meri was not a prostitute, like some of Madame's other female employees; Madame Lee had twigged early on to Meri's "condition," and had practically forbade her from taking clients of that sort, fearing an incident. Which was fine with Meri, the act of such a profession was not foreign to her, but she despised that kind of work in any case.
All such thoughts fled from her mind when she saw what hovered above her slab, however: the Ta Chi, all seven feet of it, but glowing redly from fiery pre-shogunate pictographs up and down the blade, which itself had a presence, almost as if it were alive in and of itself. She took hold of the blade, and shouted in shock at the power that flowed into her; Prana, yes, but fiery, yet dark prana, filling her with an unholy joy.
Know this, a strange, beautifully-sinister voice purred in her head, I name thee Merovingia of the Void if Time. I am thy thine and thy foster-father's blade. I am Soururipa, the Reaper of Souls. Bound are we in the contract thou hast made. The blade said the name of the demon that reforged it and made it from a simple ta chi into a great hellblade; then, from both Meri's lips, and the sword itself, came aloud the words, "We are bound."
A flash of light, and Meri stood once again in the Undertown, beside Al and Jace. "There is no time. we must go Topside," she said.
