A-Cup Angst Ch. 12

"Are you fucking nuts," he hissed in his mother's ear. "We are not staying here, with those nutjobs!"

He quickly dragged her across the square and into the side street he had parked in. There, he let go of her arm and she wheeled on him and landed a loud slap on his cheek. "Don't you ever get handsy with me again, young man," she said. Jamie glared at his mother but made no move or sound. "Now," she said, in a more agreeable tone of voice, "you said I could go live anywhere in the world, so long as it wasn't America or France. This is neither, so we're going to stay here for a few days."

"Have you lost your damn mind," Jamie said. "Do you have any idea? One word! One Facebook post, one Twitter blast about me staying here and we're going to be snatched up in the dead of night to be tortured to death! All three of us!"

"Don't be absurd, Jamie," she said, "these women think the world of you. They'd never do anything to hurt you, or us."

"Not intentionally," he said. "They'd get snatched up too. You're putting us all in danger if we stay here. Every minute we spend in this town is a minute closer to being tortured to death!" His mother just rolled her eyes. Jamie's fists tightened as images from the ship suddenly welled up in his mind. Images of his mother in a dog cage, mutilated and broken by the constant torture and rape. He had drained the people that had done that to her of their life force to undo the damage to her body and mind. He didn't have that option any more. If she got tortured again, she'd stay broken until the day she died. Jamie bottled up the horrible memories and set them aside again. There was no fucking way he'd ever risk that happening again.

He opened his mouth to say something but his mother said, "How does the girl know you?"

"What?!"

"How did you and the waitress meet," she asked. "She clearly recognized you from somewhere. And what's this debt they are saying they owe you?"

Jamie's hands rose in a gesture of disbelief and he sputtered, "That's completely beside the fucking point!"

"I don't think so," she said. "I think you've hauled Suzie and me half way across the world and you've not even bothered to tell me the truth about why you did it. We're staying with these women. For a few days, at least. Now get the bags out of the cars and take them upstairs."

"Mom!"

"I'm done with half-truths and lies," she said, dismissively, and walked past him to go back into the trattoria.

The experiences from the ship surfaced again in Jamie's mind. His heart raced. His breath became short and his nails dug painfully into his palms. He was consumed by panic as the sights from the ship consumed his sanity. He let out a strangled roar and spun. He kicked the X5's rear right door so hard he made a big dent in it. The adrenaline rush began to let off and he leaned into the door, both to feel the cool metal against his clammy skin and to hide the size of the dent until the enchantments on the car repaired it. The metal was scorching hot to the touch. Jamie winced and endured it. His limbs shook like he had ran a marathon. He deliberately heaved big, deep breaths to cool down. He felt the metal of the doors righting itself and wondered what the hell had possessed him to kick the door in public like that in the first place.

It couldn't be the homicidal madness, he didn't have magic anymore. He began to suspect that someone had charmed him into acting nutty, but his logical mind quashed that line of thinking. He stood leaning against the car for a few more minutes and was only jolted from his reverie by a soft touch on his shoulder.

The waitress was standing next to him and looking very concerned. She offered him a tentative smile and said, in a thick italian accent, "Is something wrong?"

Jamie flashed her a tight, insincere grin and shook his head no. "Everything's all right." She kept looking at him in concern and he smiled at her until she walked back inside the trattoria, shooting him concerned looks the whole time. A few of the patrons exited the establishment and cast dark, disapproving looks at him while they made their way across the square, carrying boxes of takeout from the trattoria. Jamie gave them a small wave as he felt his adrenaline settle down. He turned back to the trattoria and looked up at the two stories above it where his mother intended to stay. He needed to keep a tight muzzle on his emotions for the rest of the day. He had drawn far too much attention to himself already. Exhausted by his brief, emotional outburst, Jamie opened the door and began to retrieve the luggage from the car.

He hauled a load into the trattoria and nodded at his mother, saying "Where?"

"Follow Alessandra," Lori said, indicating the cute waitress. "She'll show you to our rooms."

Alessandra smiled another radiant smile at Jamie as she saw that they were definitely staying with them. She kept waving for him to follow her and led him up the stairs, constantly casting looks back at him. Jamie didn't know if she was checking to see if he had changed his mind, or if she was making sure he wasn't trying to look up her skirt on the steep stairs. "Maybe she's trying to get me to look," he thought to himself. The girl had wide hips and Jamie wasn't sure how much of their swaying was natural and how much, if any of it, was exaggerated for his benefit.. He did his best to keep his eyes on the steep staircase, instead of on her tight, round ass.

She led him to a pair of small rooms at the end of a corridor and he set down the bags in one of them. He decided that he was going to have one of the rooms and his mother and sister would share the other one. He went downstairs to retrieve more luggage, ignoring the girl that was saying something. He had better things to think of. His temper tantrum was one of them.

By the time he had hauled a second load of luggage up the steep stairs, his head had cleared enough to allow for rational thought again. For some reason, he thought back to the Psychology course he had taken in college. Jamie froze at the door of the room he had decided to leave for his mom and Suzie. He realized he had been experiencing symptoms akin to post-traumatic stress disorder. He set the bags down and reviewed his recent history in that new light. It all fit neatly with what he had learned about PTSD. The experiences from the ship were definitely enough to traumatize anyone. And he had forced himself to watch both the torture tapes Syndicate had sent him on top of that.

"Fuck," Jamie groaned and buried his face in his hands as he slowly sank down on the bed. "Now I'm a mundane nutjob, too. Will the fun never end?" The realization that he was damaged in a well-studied and entirely mundane manner soon made Jamie's mood lighten. There were treatments and methods to deal with PTSD. Now that he knew what was wrong with him, he didn't even need a mental health professional. All he'd need was some good books on the subject, some discipline and time and he'd mitigate and manage the problem on his own. He grinned and went downstairs to get his own luggage before he locked up the cars.

As soon as he walked into the trattoria with his own duffel bag, suitcase and laptop bag, he sensed the chef become alarmed. She looked right at him. Jamie raised an eyebrow at her and proceeded to walk to the stairs. By the time he had climbed them, he heard footsteps following him. The chef and Andrea followed him up. She approached Jamie in the hallway, all sugar and spice, but Jamie could sense the concern she was hiding. He drew a deep breath and started to apologize for his temper tantrum outside.

The chef began talking at the same time and Andrea translated her words into English. Jamie shut up and listened as the chef once again said Jamie was welcome in her house and that she owed him her daughter's life and her own sanity. Jamie took the time to look closely at her face. She possessed classically beautiful features and exquisite bone structure. On closer inspection, her skin did reveal some signs of age, but Jamie still found himself doubting she was actually old enough to be Alessandra's mother. Mothers were supposed to be wrinkly.

After a few more minutes of the chef thanking Jamie and promising to be in his debt forever, she said that Jamie had every right to bring an active spirit spell across her threshold, but that she would be more comfortable with a spell of such caliber and dark undertones having been left outside.

"What," Jamie said.

The chef apologized for disturbing Jamie and insisted that everything was alright. He could sense her deep misgivings as she started to retreat down the stairs. He remained standing in place as he knew she'd stop and climb back up, even before she did it. Andrea then translated her words as she said, "Look, I am in your debt, forever, but I can't allow for any risks to be brought into my home. My daughter's home. You returned her to me and made my heart whole, and set me free from Syndicate, but I can't have anything in this home that might risk her safety ever again."

A pause ensued and Jamie prompted her to continue by raising his eyebrows. "I cast magical wards on the threshold of my home every day," Andrea said, translating the chef's words. "They warn me of dangerous magic that comes into my home. You have brought in something that has blood magic and a deep connection to unquiet spirits in the great beyond."

"What," was Jamie's only response.

"I don't know exact nature of magical object you have brought into my home, but I would ask you, with respect, to either allow me to examine it, or to take it back out."

Jamie stared at the chef uncomprehending. He thought that Andrea must have mistranslated most of what she had said because what Jamie had just heard made no sense to him. Then Jamie remembered the battle he had with Syndicate enforcers back in the States. He had ripped the scalp off a black man who had dreadlocks with dozens of bone fetishes and leather thongs woven into them. The entire shaggy thing was in Jamie's duffel bag.

He set the bag down on the floor, opened it and retrieved a box made of dark wood. He unlocked the box and retrieved the Ziploc bag that contained the scalp, which Jamie had dried and cleaned while he was on his worldwide rampage. Jamie knew the black man had used those things to cast some pretty heavy spells, but he had never taken the time to examine them closely. Now, he no longer could. He held it up to the chef for inspection and she took it. Her face showed an expression of awe as she opened the bag and began fingering the many fetishes woven into the dreadlocks.

She muttered something under her breath and went up the stairs to the attic, mesmerized by the many fetishes in her hand. "Where is she going with those," Jamie asked Andrea. The bald sous-chef shrugged in response. He shot a look after his boss that was climbing the stairs and then looked Jamie up and down before going downstairs, presumably to get back to work. Jamie tossed his bags in his room and came back to the landing of the stairs. He stood there for a few minutes, uncertain of what to do. Finally, he sensed the presence of the chef's mind upstairs and felt some joy and exhilaration coming off of it.

Jamie climbed the stairs and found the chef in one of the attic rooms. The low ceiling forced him to hunch over as he entered the room. The chef was sitting at a massive, dark red table that had geometric patterns inlaid on its surface. She smiled at Jamie and held up one of the dreadlocks, brandishing its bone fetish. She spoke at Jamie and gestured for him to sit on a small chest beside the table. He slowly lowered himself onto it and looked at her questioningly.

She continued her explanation but soon saw he didn't understand her at all. She then gestured repeatedly at the two of them and repeated a phrase over and over. Jamie listened to her and thought he could hear her saying "lingua" over and over. He guessed it meant tongue, or language. Another word she kept repeating he guessed might mean to interpret, or translate.

Jamie guessed she was trying to tell him the fetish in her hand enabled translation, somehow. It made sense to him that a Syndicate operative would have such a fetish, as the Syndicate had been an international criminal organization. He pointed at his ear and mouth, saying, "This is going to allow us to understand each other?" She smiled and nodded her head at him. "Well, finally."

Jamie gestured for her to proceed and she gestured for him to stare at the bone fetish in her hand. Jamie gazed at the thing. He examined the way the hair was knotted around the bone. Slowly, his conscious mind drifted away, like he was falling asleep. Jamie startled alert and stood up in alarm. Only his Jedi senses stopped him from smashing the top of his head on the roof beams. The chef had used some kind of magic on him. "What did you do," he shouted.

"Can you understand me now," she asked in Italian.

"Yes, I can," Jamie said, also in Italian. "But that's beside the point! What did..." Jamie's voice trailed off as he realized he could understand and speak fluent Italian. He looked at the chef in slack jawed wonder.

She leaned back in the rickety chair she was sitting on, sporting a cheshire grin. "This fetish," she said, "allows for one spellcaster to share a specific knowledge or skill of their own with someone else. I just shared my knowledge of Italian with you. It's the least I could do for you."

Jamie felt stupid for having been alarmed a moment ago. "Well, you should have said you were going to do that," he said.

"I did," she said. "You just didn't understand me."

"Well," he said, "I can understand you now. Thank you for that. Is it permanent?"

She nodded and said, "As far as I can tell, yes, it's permanent."

"Could you teach my family Italian, as well?"

"No," she said. "This fetish only allows for a single use by a mind."

Jamie sat back down on the small chest and leaned towards her. "How so," he asked.

"A caster can only use it once to transfer one particular knowledge from their mind," she said. "Also, the recipient can only receive one knowledge from this fetish. I can not teach anyone anything else with this one, and you can never learn anything else from it, either." She looked up at him in alarm and said, "I apologize if I overstepped my-"

Jamie stopped her with a raised hand and said, "No need to apologize. It's not like I had any plans with it. Are you sure about those... restrictions?"

"Yes," she said. "The fetish allows for voluntary imparting of any knowledge or skill from any one mind to any one other mind. But the offset of this great power is that neither of those two minds can ever be touched by the fetish again. Another caster can use it without a problem on someone else, but I can not use it ever again."

"How can you know that?"

The chef tapped the large table she was sitting at. "This table was made by my family. Please don't ask me for the secret of how the table was made and imbued with its power!" Jamie held his hands up in a gesture of acquiescence. He had seen many items that had been permanently imbued with magical power, back in the Johansson's vault. He knew how those things were usually accomplished. He couldn't blame the chef if she didn't want to talk about the human sacrifices her ancestors did. "The table allows for all gifted members of my family to gain knowledge about any object that is placed on its surface. It is our great heirloom." She looked down at it with a cold expression. Jamie sensed her mood was turning bitter. "It was also the reason the Syndicate had taken Alessandra from me. They forced me to use its power for their ends, always threatening to..." She trailed off and put a hand over her brow to hide her tears.

Jamie laid a compassionate hand on her shoulder. "Hey," he whispered, "that's over now. They're gone."

She sniffed back her tears and blinked them away. "Yes," she said. "They are gone. You rid the world of them and gave me back my daughter before they could have interfered with her." She smiled and put a hand on his. "I am so grateful for that."

Jamie gulped nervously as he felt something odd stirring in her mind. "Um," he said, "what about these other fetishes?"

"Well, I don't know just yet," she said. "I've determined that they are not an actual danger to anyone, by themselves, and that they are not currently executing or holding any kind of invested spell. The next thing I looked for in the fetishes was knowledge and the table showed me visions of this bone fetish and how it's to be used."

"Your daughter doesn't have any magic, does she?"

"No. Why?"

"I was just wondering if we could teach my family Italian, as well," he said. "If I understood you correctly, knowledge of the Italian language can be transferred by this fetish again, it just can't be done by either of us."

"Yes, that is true," she said. "The fetish doesn't recognize or understand the information it is allowing to be copied between minds. It can only recognize minds and is restricted to a single use per mind."

"So, if we had two more casters to use this fetish," he said, "we could teach my sister and mother Italian?"

The chef smiled at him. "If the casters in question knew Italian, then yes," she said, "your mother and sister would know Italian just as well as those casters."

Jamie gently pulled his hand out of hers and said, "Listen... I'm sorry, I didn't quite catch your name."

"My name is Laura," she said, still smiling. "Laura Rossi."

"Laura," Jamie said. "Listen, Laura! I'm very grateful to you for offering your hospitality to my family."

"Oh, please," she said, "it's an honor. We are like family!"

"Thank you," Jamie said. "I hate to do this, but I must warn you. You can never say who I am to anyone. Not you, or your daughter. I have made quite a lot of enemies. Some of them are in high places in law enforcement. If anyone was to ever hear of me staying in your home, then they'd come after you and Alessandra and torture you until you told them all you knew."

"I understand," Laura said, nodding. "The world of magic can be very dangerous at times."

"Yes, it can," Jamie said and nodded. "Can I count on you never telling anyone who I really am?"

"Of course!"

"And Alessandra, too?"

"Yes," she said, emphatically, "yes of course!"

"Do you promise?"

"I promise!"

"Swear to me," Jamie said, "on your daughter's safety that you will never tell anyone who I really am!"

Laura took both his hands in hers as she leaned forward and kissed them. "I swear to you," she solemnly said, "on my daughter's head, that neither she nor I will ever reveal your true identity to anyone."

Jamie smiled at Laura. He felt genuine relief to hear her swear it. "Thank you," he said.

"No, no, no," she said, "thank you. Listen, I had better get downstairs and talk to Alessandra before she gets her phone out of her pocket."

Jamie's smile faded. "Yes," he said, "yes, you better hurry."

"The young nowadays with their gadgets," she said. Laura went downstairs and Jamie soon followed. She seemed like a reasonable and level-headed woman. He thought that she was probably trustworthy but decided against telling her that he was no longer a caster. He considered that piece of information a bit too dangerous to let loose.

During the next few days, Jamie and his family stayed with the Rossis that were impeccably generous hosts. Jamie acted as interpreter, for the first few days, until Laura called some friends over and had them share their knowledge of Italian with his mother and sister. Jamie also bid her to have them charm his family into thinking that they had learned Italian years ago, back at home, and that they didn't need an interpreter this whole time they had been in Italy, but had made use of them to test their own Italian. He also had them put charms into their minds that would make them hesitant towards having their pictures taken and make them partially turn in profile when they couldn't stop it.