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Reflections in Blood	By : JulieDoc Category: Lord of the Rings Movies > General > Lord of the Ring Stars Views: 2338 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: This is work of fiction! I do not know the celebrity(ies) I am writing about, and I do not profit from these writings.

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Reflections in Blood

Part 1: Storyteller, Turn Down the Cards
December 6th, 2002

Chicago
The signs were all in place, Melanie Sawyer thought ruefully from her cell beneath the mansion on Rush Street. The Gil-Galad had missed their opportunity last time, due to a misinterpretation of their own twisted prophecy. Insanity, but their insanity had clout. How else could a cult of one hundred twenty gotten hold of experimental technology? It showed Melanie, as it would soon, no doubt, show many others, what could be accomplished when madness and determination mingled with well-organized intelligence.
Their first attempts had failed; of course now they knew the '70's animated films were not the sign they'd waited for. Peter Jackson's masterful films had exploded like a flare in the psyche of the flagging Order of Starlight. They had also rejuvenated their ranks. Seventy more of the most crazed, the most devoted, now followed the inner circle of Gil-Galad, almost all of them female.

All of them mad, at the very least, greedy or misguided, or both. That's how Luthien caught the younger ones, especially girls. Some of them probably feel trapped, now that they know it's a cult they've gotten themselves into, Melanie thought, flicking a huge deck of mismatched cards through experienced fingers. All of them with that thirst, and too many of them craving their Legolas or their Frodo. They don't know what the thing they desire entails. It's taken ten lives already.

She knew this as well as she knew the fact that she would never leave the understructure of the mansion alive. Incredible pain had killed the subject of Gil-Galad's "dry run" of the experiment. The images of it had burned through her mind when they'd pulled her into the reception hall, as drugged as she'd been. Only intense suffering could leave behind residuals like she'd "seen". It was not merely the physical trauma of being . . . tampered with; the pain itself had caused the man's system to simply collapse. The spells Melanie's forebear had used, in a frantic attempt to heal, had sapped most of her strength. In a final rush to escape the energy backlash, the other wizard had pulled two guards into the circle, killing them instantly.
After that debacle, the Order of Starlight had sought out Melanie Sawyer, the last wizard in the Chicago area who could be overcome by physical force alone. The others were too powerful to succumb to such trivial human things as being kidnapped. They had kept her heavily drugged until a week from now. The last thing she'd remembered before the drugs had started was the bloodrite. Six people had been killed in order to bind Melanie to the purpose of the Gil-Galad, and the dying wizard also placed a ward on her so that she could neither kill or injure herself until they were finished. It was a powerful spell, bound by the blood of so many, and Melanie herself could not break it. She doubted if it was within the power of the Gods themselves.
She was sorely tempted toward death, to slash her throat with one of her sharper cards, to drop her scrying ball on her head or chest. Any thought of this, though, was met with fiery pain in Melanie's head, so she'd long since stopped them. She feared she was in danger of losing her soul. No self-respecting practitioner of the Arts would agree to what the Gil-Galad wanted.
"Crazy new-ager, thinks those cards might help her," one of Melanie's two guards muttered. "And thinks that damn bowling ball's a palantir." The other woman huffed in reply, took another sip of Diet Sprite.
Melanie ignored them, shuffling the deck again. It was actually six or seven different decks of divinatory cards, all mashed together, different sizes, shapes. It was them she'd screamed for when she'd been imprisoned, and Luthien, on a whim, had humored her. There's no saving me, but there still may be hope, she thought. Who will they take first? She spread the great pile out, flipping over a larger card. <<Faery oracle>> Luathas the Wild, spirit of energy, never slowing, never resting, creative and destructive at once, she looked at the nude, green figure, crouched with tattered wings spread, but instead of the insane, goblinlike face he usually wore, she saw lovely features, long cheekbones, deep, dark eyes lit with fire. Ahhhh, poor Orlando, I should have guessed. Elves have always been the Order's priority. Who next? She turned the next card, its back like black lacquer, the Londa deck, a pretty deck, but terribly aloof and uncooperative, usually. The Sun, hope, the best of all possible worlds. A handsome youth, bathed in light, was turned away from Melanie's gaze, but the huge, oblong eyes suddenly shone a blinding blue. Elijah . . . then? Another faery card practically leaped from the makeshift deck. "The Friends", was its title, showing a smiling faery perched atop another's hand, both of them skimming along. The smirking one changed to look a bit like Dominic Monaghan, and the one on the lower level, singing, blurred until he looked something like Billy Boyd. Dom and Billy . . . Billydom - it�s almost an adjective, or a state of being, as a fan of the movies, Melanie couldn't help but smile, those two are soul-linked, though Gods only know how. Is there any hope they might overlook Sean Astin, then? A ten of swords from her Egyptian deck told her that answer. "Ruin"; they would not let him go.
"Isn't there any hope?" Melanie sighed, pleading with the cards. The guards, thinking she was crazy, anyway, ignored her. Slamming the cards down into the dust on the floor, she noticed a small group of them that had fallen off to the side. Not the cops, obviously. Who? <<The unicorn deck>> The first card was the Magician, looking wise and beatific. Ian, obviously, or Christopher Lee maybe, but it's Ian the true power of magick rolls from. I don't think anyone could ask for a better protector among wizards, though he's certainly not on a par with Gandalf. Next up? Her vampire deck, a playful, capricious set of cards, held the next answer. Another Magician, but it wasn't the nature of the card, but the appearance, that struck a chord with Melanie. With his arched brows and deep, mysterious eyes, he resembled Hugo Weaving, at least as Elrond.

Hugo, then. Where are Viggo and Sean Bean during all this? The next card, of the Cat People, provided her answer, the King of Wands. Insight, creativity, stability, it read, intelligence, at least in that deck. The man, who should have been dark and bearded, was fairer now, long, pale brown hair trailing down his back, eyes like light green jade, luminous and slitted like a cat's. He was jewelled everywhere, robed in a deep, vibrant green that suited him, and flanked by a wise-eyed lynx. {You make a fine king, or a cat, Viggo. I hope your hunt succeeds. The lives of five men may depend on that.} Melanie hardly had to turn down the last card to know who it contained. This was a medieval card, one of a deck Melanie could swear she did not own. It was "Strength", but where such cards generally depicted a woman riding or accompanied by a large cat, this depicted a man, locked in frantic struggle with a great wolf. The tawny shade of the wolf's fur and the deep blond of the man's hair very nearly matched. Certainly "Strength" you are, Sean, but what are you struggling with? I hope that it doesn't pain you as much as it looks.

"Hey, witch, put it away for a minute," one of the guards sneered, flicking a lit cigarette between the bars. Melanie had to scramble to keep the cinders from igniting her cards, and she pulled them out of reach, hunching over to where her scrying ball sat. Mustering a little spit, she wet the ball's surface, and rubbed it with her sleeve. Not blessed water, but it would do. Breathing deeply, she gazed low into the plastic's sheen.
Luthien, whose birth name was Caroline Bryan, stood mumbling at Bethuliel and Aeowyn, her Lieutenants, something about the next two days that Melanie could not hear clearly. Aeowyn, who had altered her name so as not to be confused with an active character in the Rings trilogy, opened the altar box that sat beside Luthien's chair.
"Yes, we can prepare the serum. We send out the first agents tomorrow night," Luthien did not smile, her face impassive. The box opened, revealing a bleached skull. The eyes were somewhat larger than those of a human, the structure of bone somehow more delicate. Where the ears should have been was a small curved ridge of bone, supports for delicate ears that were larger than those of humanity. Luthien scraped a bit of the bone into a glass phial with a small dagger. She handed it to Bethuliel. "Soon. Give this to Tinuviel to prepare." Melanie rested her forehead on her knuckles as she watched, pained beyond belief before the vision blackened away.
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Reflections in Blood