Guinee Part 1

So I just got back from a magical underwater land where dead people spend eternity getting wasted and partying down. I gave my mom a call to tell her I was back and doing well, but the conversation went sort of like this.

Me: "Hey mom. I'm back fro--"

Mom: "I don't really want to know."

Me: "Is something wrong?"

Mom: "No, actually things have been very nice since I saw your father again and since the wedding... but I just don't want to have to worry about you anymore. My doctor told me I shouldn't get my blood pressure up too much."

Me: "Sure thing mom."

So, yeah, I guess out of respect for not giving my mother heart attacks, I'm stuck with this journal thing.

Whatever.

So Laurel and I decided to finally head down to Guinee--the Loa underworld-- and get back the ghost of Marie Glapion, this woman that Laurel shot in the face in an attempt--successful attempt I should add--to save Nate's life.

Short version of the following story: I was useless, Laurel did everything.

Long version of the story: I was useless, but I got to steer a fucking tri-mast frigate under water! while Laurel did everything.

So we got ourselves ready to go. Apparently Apollo had given Laurel a ring ahead of time so she'd be able to survive deep underwater. I, however, had no such ring and had to bring a nommo eye--and hold it in my mouth for almost four days. In the mean time Laurel got to wear a wet suit--which I should add are rather form fitting and attractive--while I got to look like aqua-man's half-shark cousin.

We went to Bridgitte's grave in New Orleans, Laurel did a little marking on the tombstone, and we were in the water. Then Augwe came by in Imamu--the aforementioned tri-mast frigate--and plucked us out of the water for the trip down to Guinee. Below decks there was a party. A serious party. The kind of party where if you're not having a good time, there must be something seriously wrong with you (or I guess you could just not like parties--but I think that means that there's something wrong with you.) But as the ship started to dive--yeah, like a fucking submarine--I started to be able to see all the ghosts and stuff.

Now, before we'd left Berkeley, we'd gotten a bit of a present from Camilla. The present was a pair of scion souls from her dad that we could exchange for Marie when we got to Guinee--how sweet. I couldn't see them then, but Laurel said it was some guy and some gal, and the guy was Victor Fingers. So I didn't feel too perturbed. But when I started being able to see the ghosts on the ship I saw her... and it was someone I recognized. It was, in fact, the first innocent person (maybe innocent doesn't apply, but the term 'good guy' certainly would have) I ever saw die right in front of me. I'd seen plenty of people die before that--but they were always gangsters, drug cartel gunmen, professional hit men, or the like. But on my way to Vegas, on my way to meet my dad for the first time, I met this woman Sarah who seemed really sweet and intelligent--even if she was dressed a bit like Xena, Warrior Princess at the time.

She and I fought a big, Japanese demon together that tried to kill us and blew up a gas station. We drove together for about three days in search of her owl and then on the way to Vegas. We even stopped together at a hospital for some much needed demon-related treatment. I mean, we were hardly best friends, but I was getting to think she was someone I could consider friendly--and trust me that list was pretty short at the time. But just a little ways outside of Vegas we come upon this huge car accident... and while we're getting out to see what's going on these fucking shadow-ninja-things (shinobi) come out of basically everywhere and start attacking us. They killed her. And in cold blood. I fought as hard as I could, but I wasn't prepared for this nonsense, and I couldn't save her. What almost hurt more was the look on her mother's face. She was a daughter of Athena (adoptive, obviously) and her mother arrived in person to collect the body. And she was obviously heart-broken. I swear, you can tell people who say Steel Magnolias is sad to sit on it and spin. You don't know real sadness till you see it face to face in the eyes of a mother who has just discovered her child's corpse.

Anyways, I guess I'd never really realized until I saw Sarah's ghost there in that boat, chained to our little scroll case, waiting to be traded for Marie, just how much it had hurt me and just how much it had pissed me off. And what was worse was that she didn't remember. She didn't remember anything. Nothing I could do or say to her seemed to call back to her mind anything I could relate to, any way I could tell her I was sorry for letting that happen--for not seeing that trap coming and throwing that car into reverse so hard the world spun the other way around. I couldn't do shit.

I decided two things right then and there. The first one was that when Laurel and I make our own pantheon--no one forgets. She had the same thought. That's always a good sign.

The other thing I decided though is something a little more serious. I mean, it was something I had known I was going to do anyways, but now it's on the list. It is a 100% clarified goal in my life to hunt down Kane Taoka and exact upon him the most horrible of pains before he dies--and just as he does die to tie his eternal soul to a fucking television set and turn that tv onto a fucking Barnie the Dinosaur marathon, then lock that television in the most remote room of the most remote building in the most remote area of the hardest-to-find extra-dimensional space in the entire universe--lock the fucking door and melt the key down into a necklace. For, if there is a worse fate than an eternity of the most superficial, pseudo-optimistic tripe to have ever been produced by man kind, I'm yet to hear of it.

Fuck.