tcnetwork | The Shade | "Joe" {Josiah Cole}

Look, I need your advice.

I'd make a wiseass remark 'bout callin' the papers, but it ain't exactly wiseass if you're askin' me for advice.

What do you need, Feynman?

Yeah, you're really funny. Ha ha.

I removed Charles Lee Ray's spirit from the second Nica, who I guess is going by Shura now. She seems to be able to access his magic, however. Is that something you could help her with? I don't really know anything about voodoo magic yet, and the idea of it being left behind seems strange to me.

Lotta voodoo magic, from what I know if it, is rooted in life 'n death so I shouldn't have a problem with instructin' her. Send her my way, I'll help where I can.

You ain't wrong, though: that ain't altogether right. In some degree or another, one thing seems fair consistent across worlds: magic's linked to the spirit, the essence. S' what makes it good or bad, the soil in which the seed's planted.

I don't know much 'bout this Ray fella, but what I do know? Don't make me altogether comfortable with the notion that some link might exist 'twixt him and the Boss--even some other world's version of the Boss.

I'll send her your way, then.

This is the second time we've had to evict him from the body of some version of Nica, so I wouldn't be surprised. I did do some research on him between the last time, when Elle took care of it, and this time. Everything I'd found suggested that he had to inhabit the body of a child, but that doesn't seem to have been the case with Nica.

Boss has a certain kind of spirit. Is it possible that it ain't necessarily the age of the body, but the state of what inhabited it? Dark things love to taint the pure, and the Boss--well, you know what's in her heart.

I suppose that's possible.

Doesn't really explain why she has abilities now, does it? Or maybe it does. I don't know.

It does. Rather, it can.

Don't go spreadin' it around, but some of the power I possess is borrowed from an invasive mystical presence. Little more aggressive than possession, but not dissimilar. Violations can leave marks, sometimes they're traces and others are deposited. Left behind on purpose. No tellin' which this could be, in her case.

You think he did it on purpose, then?

It's possible. The magic left in me was destructive--meant to hollow out a human soul. Strip all but the magic in it, take away identity and everything else. My personal power was what protected me, I had too damn much of it.

Might be she ought not to use this power too much 'till I can get a look at her. All magic has a price, best we know what hers is 'fore she goes using it willy nilly. Could be that price is Ray having increased control of her from afar, if his power's anything like the kind I got hold of my own self.

I'll tell her not to, or to try not to. I don't think she was using it on purpose, it sounds like an accident.

If it were like my magic, I could help her more, but all I could really do was make sure her body was uninhabitable by anyone but her. And before you ask, yes. I did make sure he couldn't just hop into mine.

Wasn't gonna ask, son: she may not be the Boss, but she's got her face. You wouldn't do anything that'd risk you hurtin' her.

Odd bit, but...I think I'm startin' to understand that mindset a touch.

I wouldn't, no. I'd do anything to save her. Any version of her.

Are you? Because of Miss Goode? Or Angel? Both, I imagine.

Fair certain. Least with Angel--but that's easier to know, she's not just my daughter, her soul is mine. If the world don't exist with her in it, then the world don't get to exist.

Cordy? It's...similar. I think.

You breathe a word of this to anyone, and I'll skin you alive, but...you 'n the Boss. How'd you know? That you--felt somethin'.

I can understand that. Believe me.

Who would I tell?

Oh, that's easy. Without her, I get stuck in my head. Almost literally. Back home, I once spent four days holed up in my apartment working on an experiment. I learned how to speak Welsh because I was bored in the hospital after a car accident I got into because I was distracted by a physics problem. When I'm with her, that doesn't happen and I'm more present. That's only happened with one other person.

The Shade | "Joe" {Josiah Cole}

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