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Jonah Magnus has been called many things for many years, and a backstabber has most certainly been one of them. He sighed wistfully as he remembered his past suitors, and how so many of them reached their end because of him.
Honestly, before he’d hopped bodies to Elias, his only regret was never getting to doom Mordechai like so many others…
But ever since he’d gotten into Elias…..
Things were different. Really different.
He had only managed to get one eye in before Elias managed to awaken and fend him off, with only one eye within James Wright….
Well, it was an easy fight for Elias to win, though it certainly came with downsides…
“For the last fucking time we aren’t buying ourselves a fifteenth corset!” Elias muttered underneath his breath, even as his left hand reached for the item anyways.
He used his right to swat it off and continue walking, though his left leg decided to stay firmly in place.
He grumbled for a few minutes before, reluctantly, picking up the corset.
….Jonah didn’t think he regretted most of his past decisions. Even thought he considered himself to be mostly redeemed, he didn’t really care about the past, maybe because it was so easy to pretend it wasn’t him when he’d gone through half a dozen bodies since…..
Still, when times were peaceful, when there was nary a spider or mannequin-well there were a few mannequins given that it was a clothing store but the eye didn’t alert him of any “mannequins” so he was certain he was fine on that front- in sight, Jonah found himself mourning a few of the people he’d sent… if not to their graves, then certainly to a place far worse.
Foolish, considering these specific souls were necessary to kill-or, at the very least, he’d thought so at the time….
Ah, poor, poor Gerard. (He’d never liked being called that, but Jonah had to admit he still took a little pleasure in looking at him, eyes so much like Mary’s, and saying that accursed name.) (Even good men had guilty pleasures, what could he say?)
It was nearly a decade ago by now, but he remembers it so very clearly.
The buried ritual was about to go off, as dozens of hundreds of sculptors and architects worked to create the perfect, horrid, cramped little space to bring their god to them.
He remembers how Gerard had complained about having to go-he always did, even though they both knew he’d end up going regardless. His father having been eaten by the buried had certainly instilled in him a hero’s attitude. Not to mention preventing this ritual would be the perfect middle finger to the fear that had taken his father from him in the first place.
Ah, he remembers how obvious it was that, even as he half-heartedly whined about being forced to do these things- the only thing Gerry had wanted to do in the moment he’d told him of his plans was to hop on whatever transportation was needed and help him blow the place to smithereens….
It’s a shame it wasn’t that simple that time. Honestly, blowing it up and letting it traps so many people would’ve only bolstered the ritual’s effect. No, he had to be far more careful with how he went about it.
It was difficult to see, so far down, but the buried couldn’t block off his sights completely. Plus with as many people working on it as there were, it was fairly easy to kidnap one and Compel him to answer a few questions on the layout.
The difficult part was going from there. It seemed as though it was designed to crumble at the slightest touch, and there was-
Oh.
Jonah had spent weeks pouring over it when it finally hit him.
Air bubbles. The place was going to be littered with them throughout, after all what was the buried without sadistically giving its victims false hope? But that was where the mistake lied.
Even if the Earth did come crashing down, there was a specific path one could follow through the soil to be able to come right back to the surface.
Or, at the very least, that was what he’d told Gerry of. No, the thing that map was leading to was in fact a door, the entrance-which Gerry would use as an exit-to the building but not to the surface.
No, he was afraid Gerry was going to die there, as the building would no doubt crush into him, do everything in its power to pull him back and deeper into its clutches, as the buried does often.
But. It would give him control over the building, at the very least, and if Jonah knew Gerry-and he did, he Knew him very well- then he knew Gerry would use the very last of his unchanged consciousness to bring down the ritual with him.
It had worked, thought Jonah knew it would’ve regardless of whether or not he’d sacrificed Gerry, and Gerry was now one with the Earth. A very powerful avatar. (Jonah was lucky he hadn't figured out who it was he’d body hopped to or he would certainly be a lot more than 6 feet under by now.)
…Perhaps, that was it. The pointlessness of his death. For all his past victims, there was a reason for it. When he’d allowed Albrecht to be fed to the lonely and when he fooled Jonathan into thinking he could save him, or when Barnabas had found himself covered in eyes, or even when Sampson found his heart being eaten at by spiders, they all had a purpose.
It might seem lofty to anyone else, but they helped him pursue knowledge and that was something he could never bring himself to regret…
But Gerry’s death… God. Not only was it pointless, it was a monument to how ignorant Jonah had been at the time.
And the worst part? It wasn’t even the only one. They could make an entire cemetery with the monuments Jonah had to his name.
Take the cases of Emma Carpenter and Fiona Harvey for two more examples, perhaps the most humiliating he’d had.
God, how on Earth did he not realize what Fiona was doing sooner?
Fiona was a very skilled stranger, but there was no way in hell Jonah Magnus should’ve been fooled by her even so.
He’d been around the block longer, he was more powerful than her, he should have known!
But no, he was far to distracted by pointless rituals and-
And he didn’t even notice when Emma had died at first.
He seethed quietly as he thought about how it must’ve gone down with limited knowledge as the eye had been much weaker for him ever since his…. Altercation with Elias.
Emma wasn’t even dead during the first try, it could’ve taken a dozen for all he’d know, and that frustrated him to no end.
And it all occurred right under his nose.
The first time they went out together, he had thought nothing of it, he barely even recalled what it was, though the eye hadn’t abandoned him so wholly that it would be even allow him to remember memories which he’d forgotten.
Ah yes, right.
It was the spiral that had begun it all. Fiona had wanted to see it for herself but was unwilling to put herself in danger for that goal. She was planning to use Emma as the sacrifice for this plan.
He didn’t have the slightest clue as to how it was that she’d survived, his best guess being that the spiral, fickle creature as it is, had simply found her entertaining enough to spare her life. Either that, or it simply wanted to piss off Fiona.
Whatever the reason, it simply continued to happen. Fiona would lead Emma to seemingly impossible-to-get-out-of situations and Emma would get out of them anyway.
That is, until a rather unfortunate encounter with the web had sent her to her demise. He supposed it just goes to show, it doesn’t matter how charming you are or how well you can persuade those around you if you were trapped from the very beginning.
Now this, this was what finally caught his attention. It was too little too late but he couldn’t help but be caught up in his necessity for vengeance. After all, despite Jonah’s love for taking, he did so hate when others stole from him and Emma’s life was one he’d hoped to use for his own cause.
He supposes it doesn’t matter, her death would’ve been ultimately pointless and untimely either way but, at the very least in of those situations she might’ve died knowing she had a good cause to die for. He didn’t know if that would comfort her, but he wanted to believe it would. He tried to tell himself that with most of his assistants.
It was unconvincing.
At the very least with Fiona he didn’t even have to be bothered to try and pretend like the death wasn’t completely amoral. He didn’t have a good reason to do it.
No, it was not justice. How could it be when he’d done worse before?
He never knew this feeling. Her never felt such rage. But he had to admit.
There was a certain satisfaction he took when it came to bashing in her too-smooth skin and unloaded eyes with a pipe and taking out a Leitner to finish the job.
It was of the desolation. Good.
She should be forced to feel his loss as strongly as he did.
And then there was Michael, Michael Keay.
Ah, Michael. While Jonah was always chasing after bigger fish, rituals and the like, Michael had taken care of smaller issues, and through that, saved so many more than Jonah had, even after he’d grown a consciousness.
At the very least, Michael’s death wasn’t owed to his ignorance. No, it was something he couldn’t have possibly controlled. He had gotten terminal brain cancer and died later the same month-he was supposed to have an entire year left, god damn it , he remembers crying when he finally flatlined.
No, Michael’s death wasn’t his fault…
But what had happened after on the other hand…. It was a fate worse than death, and a reason worse than ignorance.
Fondness. As much as Jonah loathed to admit it, he was fond of Michael. And, death had always terrified him, it was why he always found himself distancing himself from his companions, emotionally at least, just so it wouldn’t hurt-wouldn’t scare him-as much when they finally did fade away.
But he had done no such thing with Michael. No, he never planned to sacrifice him and somehow, somehow, he thought that meant that Michael wouldn’t die. At least not yet.
So out of this foolish, horrid, fondness, Jonah had done something very, very, awful to Michael.
It was a worse betrayal than when his father spent the day carving eyes into him to protect him from the spiral.
It was more painful for him too.
He knew because Michael wouldn’t stop laughing when he’d summoned him. Odd thing he was, that his reflexive reaction to pain was giggling, and oh you would’ve though Jonah an absolute riot with how Michael guffawed when he was finally summoned.
He could barely stand it for longer than a few minutes before he put the book away. (Stolen from Jurgen. Good. He always did hate that fool.)
Even so, even knowing he would never have the boy he cared so deeply for back….
He simply could not burn the book.
And now?…..
Perhaps Michael was the biggest testament to his ignorance of all, as for once, Jonah didn’t want to see. Didn’t want to watch over and know what horrible things befell him.
He laughed, so humorlessly that it brought to mind Michael’s own laughs, at the notion that something so…pedestrian would be what tore him from his utter devotion to the eye to the side of supposed “good”.
“Something funny?” Ah right, Elias was still here-not that he could leave, of course, given that they’d shared a body.
“Oh no, nothing at all-“ he muttered back, just a tad insecure about being seen talking to himself- “Just remembered something that used to make me laugh is all.”
Elias gave a hum to signify he’d heard, and they were on their merry way to continue shopping, as though this little bout of his had never occurred.
Good. As far as he was concerned, it hadn’t.