“Mundane?” Barb finished for her. “Barbara Everette,” she added, smiling.
“Actually,” the woman said, shaking her head ruefully. “I was going to say ‘Bible-thumper.’ “ She handed Barbara her badge and shrugged with a grin. “I think you’re the only Christian attending this time. We’d heard that you get your power from the White God and you don’t get powers like those without being steeped in faith.”
“You also don’t get them by simply going to church on Sunday and looking down your nose at everyone else the rest of the week,” Barb said, hanging the badge around her neck on a provided lanyard. “Or, for that matter, by looking down your nose at all.”
“That’s… true,” the woman said, rapidly reevaluating her.
“So I won’t be Bible thumping this week,” Barbara said. “Or standing in the hallways screaming at everyone that they’re going to hell.”
“Oh,” the woman said, chuckling. “Good.”
“Although I may point out that there is but one path to Heaven,” Barbara added, grinning. “Through the Saving Grace of Our Lord. But only if anyone asks.”
She turned to see that Julie and James had been waiting through the by-play and joined them.
“I can see that this is going to be an interesting week.” Barb sighed.
“You’re not what anyone expected you to be,” Julie said. “Some of the high-level adepts, like Dartho, tend to be sort of… stuck on themselves. That doesn’t interfere with their work, but I sort of expected you to be…”
“Pride is a sin,” Barb said, shrugging. “Sin destroys the soul and closes it to God. And I’m here to learn. I am a… newbie. What my dad would call an FNG. And… yes, I feel like a fish out of water. I hadn’t expected… this,” she finished, gesturing to the people in line. There were more weird outfits than she’d ever seen in her life. At least Julie and James were dressed normally. “But I have to learn if I’m to do this job to the best of my ability. And doing less would also be a sin against God.”
“Not to mention getting killed,” James said, frowning. “And getting your soul ripped out and tossed into eternal torment.”
“That too,” Barbara admitted. “There are things…” She stopped and shook her head at the visions. “My husband has been complaining about the nightmares I’ve been having. I can’t exactly tell him that I’m reliving watching a demon feeding on its worshippers. Not to mention trying to feed on me. Nor is there an analyst I can approach about it.”
“There are some here,” Julie said, leading them off. “And you might want to talk to them. What you’re suffering from is straight-forward post-traumatic stress. There are aspects of it that learning about help. There are probably things that you think about your experience that bother you. And those are, quite often, very normal and have a logical basis. Dr. Braun can probably help you quite a bit.”
“That would be nice,” Barbara admitted. “But I’m not sure I’ll have time this week.”
“Don’t worry, you will,” James said. “There’s only so much you can absorb at once. They’ll probably suggest that you take a heavy load at first, then trail off towards the end of the week. Besides, a lot of the learning in this field is what’s called institutional memory. You’ll pick up the theory in the seminars but you can only really learn by doing and then talking it over with more experienced operators.”
“Are you operational?” Julie asked as they left the building.
“I’m not sure what you mean by that,” Barb admitted. “But I was told I was going to be given a mission of something like a week’s duration at the completion of this week.”
“That’s operational,” Julie said, with a note of curiosity. “They generally pair a new operator with an older one. Do you know who you’re going to be with?”
“No,” Barbara said. “I very much hope it’s not Dartho, though.”
“He’s not that bad once you get to know him,” James said.
“Yes, he is,” Julie contradicted. “Stuck on himself doesn’t begin to cover it. His guardian is… weird. A Chinese dragon-god with odd tastes. If it weren’t for his actions I’d say that he was on the side of the Enemy. But he has done too much good to believe that.”
“I’m sort of following you,” Barb admitted as they crossed one of the many bridges, this one made of twisted bamboo.
“We’re heading for the First Night get-together,” Julie said. “They’re serving a buffet for dinner. It’s… traditional. We gather for the first meal and new people, like yourself, get introduced. You won’t have to make a speech or anything, just stand up and wave so everybody knows who you are.”
“Ah,” Barbara said. “I feel like I’m in a fishbowl already. This should be great.”
The Philosophy Center was the largest building in the facility. Barb didn’t recognize the architecture immediately, but she suspected it was northern European. Heavy logs made up most of the structure and they had been elaborately carved with looping abstract figures and staring faces.
“It’s based upon a long house,” Julie said, following her gaze. “An Asatru worship center. They call it the Philosophy House because it’s where people tend to gather to talk. And debate. Lots of debate.”
“What is there to debate?” Barbara asked as they entered the high entrance.
“Well, take what I said about anger,” Julie said, frowning. “The Asatru have a philosophy that is far away from Christianity or, to an extent, even Wicca. Their highest calling is to become berserker, angry beyond the level of control. To destroy their enemies as servants in Valhalla and, most important, to die courageously in battle. To die in bed sends you to the Cold Lands, Hel, rather than Valhalla. And the Cold Lands are rather boring. So anger is, to them, a manifestation of their gods rather than a weakness for the demons to exploit.”
“I see,” Barb said, looking around at the crowd in the room. “Oh, my.”
“Yeah,” James said, grinning. “People have a tendency to dress up on First Night.”
In one corner of the room where what she had to assume were the Asatru, a group dressed up in medieval clothing, some of them in partial armor and all of them armed with swords, axes and hammers. One of them definitely went for the “fantasy” version: a tall, statuesque redhead who could have been, might be, a super-model, in a chain-mail bikini with a sword slung over her shoulder. There were any number of what she had pegged as “druid” types, Wiccan probably, in hooded ceremonial robes. The two Buddhist monks were seated with a dark-skinned group she figured for Hindu in elaborate costumes, the women in saris, their hair pinned up with gilded combs, and the men in embroidered pajamas.
She saw Sharice near the front of the room, talking with a group of older women, some of them in outfits that she could only call “witchy.” And Dartho was surrounded by a group of even younger men and women, all of them pierced, spiked and tattooed.
There were more people in “mundane” outfits in the room than in “costume” but it was hard to realize. The costumers just stood out from the crowd. Probably one of the reasons they costumed.
“I underdressed,” she said to Julie, chuckling. “If I was going to dress as ‘myself’ for this, it would have been the little black dress, heels and the pearl necklace. My version of costume.”
“I could have worn my ceremonial robes,” Julie said, shrugging. “But they’re not particularly comfortable unless you’re sky clad underneath.”
“I take it you’re not Christian, either,” Barbara said as they made their way into the room. She still hadn’t asked what sky clad meant, but that description gave her a very good idea.