Chapter 7 — Lessons in Chaos
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The House of Mystery had finally stopped trying to eat us.
Well — mostly. The walls still groaned sometimes, and occasionally a door opened into a century that hadn't happened yet, but by my standards, that's as "tamed" as magic real estate gets.
Wanda sat cross-legged on the library floor, eyes closed, hands glowing faint red. The air around her shimmered like heat on asphalt. She looked focused, determined — and furious.
"You're scowling again," I said from my chair, cigarette dangling from my mouth as I watched the smoke curl into shapes that probably violated causality.
Her eyes snapped open, red light flaring. "You're teaching me wrong! You don't even use chaos magic — how can you teach me to control something you don't understand?"
I smirked. "Welcome to life, love. Most of the time, the teacher's making it up as he goes."
"That's not comforting."
"Wasn't meant to be."
I leaned forward, elbows on my knees. "Look, I may not use chaos magic, but I've seen enough of it to know what it does to people who think they can control it. So unless you fancy turning into a screaming vortex of regret, do me a favor and listen."
Her lips pressed into a thin line. She was trying to stay calm — and doing a piss-poor job of it.
"I can feel it," she whispered. "The House. It's… watching."
"Good," I said. "Means it likes you. Or at least, it hasn't decided to eat you yet."
She frowned. "That's not funny."
"Neither is dying, but we laugh at that too."
The floor beneath her pulsed faintly, like a heartbeat. The red glow dimmed as her concentration steadied.
She was learning. Slowly. Painfully. But she was learning.
"Alright," I said, getting up. "You keep the power in your chest, not your hands. That's where the emotion sits — fear, anger, all the messy bits. The hands are just the delivery system. You burn through those, you'll just end up a crispy corpse with a lightshow."
She scowled again. "You talk like this is easy."
"Oh, it's not," I said, smirking. "If it were, I'd have retired already. Maybe opened a pub somewhere normal."
"Somewhere normal?" she asked, incredulous.
I gestured around. "Compared to this place, a haunted Irish bar's a bloody spa day."
⸻
She went back to focusing, and I took a seat near the grand mirror that reflected everything except your future. That's when it hit me again — that gnawing whisper in the walls. The memory of when I'd first come here, before I'd dragged her into it.
When the House had still been wild. When it had still remembered me like a fever dream it couldn't shake.
⸻
Flashback — The House Beckons
The first time I stepped through the door, it wasn't a door at all. It was a decision.
A voice whispered, "Come home, Eli."
The street had gone silent — no cars, no people, not even the hum of the city. Just a door standing in the middle of the alley, bleeding golden light around its frame.
I knew better than to answer.
So naturally, I opened it.
Inside was… well, impossible. The architecture didn't follow physics, time, or good taste. Staircases led sideways, chandeliers burned underwater, and the air smelled like old paper and new sin.
And sitting at a small table, sipping tea as if this was the most normal thing in the world, was Cain.
Tall, pale, grinning like the last joke before death. The caretaker of the original House of Mystery.
"Eli Constantine," he said, standing to greet me. "Welcome to my copy."
"Copy?" I asked, stepping in carefully. "Didn't know hell had a patent office."
He chuckled — a sound that could make mirrors crack. "The multiverse does strange things when devils tamper with the seams. Mephisto tried to mimic my home — blend realities, stitch concepts across worlds. This House is a reflection of mine… but not truly alive. Not until you came along."
"Lucky me," I muttered. "So what? You the landlord?"
He smiled wider. "Let's say I'm the original. You, on the other hand… you're the caretaker here."
"Caretaker?" I scoffed. "I don't even clean up after myself."
"The House doesn't need cleaning," Cain said. "It needs remembering. Anchoring. Without a master, it unravels — and takes the world it's in with it. Mephisto's meddling ensured this version exists here. But because it's only a copy of mine, I can't cross over fully. I can speak through it, appear as echo, but not stay."
"So let me get this straight," I said, lighting a cigarette. "You're a cosmic ghost of the world's creepiest landlord, and now you want me to babysit your haunted house?"
He tilted his head. "Not want. Need. The House chose you, Eli. It remembers you. You are, in a sense, part of its original design."
"That's bollocks," I said. "I'm not part of anything's design. I'm the bloke people summon when design's gone to hell."
"Exactly," Cain said. "You were born of Mephisto's multiversal failures — an echo of two worlds colliding. You don't belong to this reality, and neither does this House. You stabilize each other."
I stared at him for a long moment. "So I'm stuck here."
He smiled kindly — which somehow felt worse than when he was smiling cruelly. "Stuck? No. Bound. There's a difference."
"Great. Always wanted to be magically employed without pay."
Cain laughed again, the sound echoing through corridors that didn't end. "You'll find it rewarding, I think. The stories in these walls will teach you things no mortal spellbook can. You'll learn what even I do not understand about the multiverse."
I frowned. "And what happens when I get tired of being your bloody housekeeper?"
"Then," he said, turning toward the window — where universes shimmered like stars — "you'll finally understand why none of us ever leave our stories."
The House pulsed, the air bending. His form flickered, fading.
"Wait," I said. "If you're the caretaker in your world, and I'm the caretaker here… what happens if our Houses ever touch?"
Cain's eyes gleamed. "Then reality itself will need a new author."
And then he was gone.
⸻
Present — The House Tamed
Wanda's voice broke through my memory. "You're doing that thing again — staring off like you're seeing ghosts."
I blinked, realizing my cigarette had burned down to ash. "That's because I am."
She sighed. "You're impossible."
"Yeah," I said, lighting another one. "And yet, you keep showing up."
She smiled despite herself — small, hesitant, but real. "Maybe I like impossible things."
I smirked. "Careful, love. That's how the universe starts giving them to you."
The House hummed — softly, content — like it approved. The candles flickered in rhythm with her heartbeat.
Wanda closed her eyes again, hands steady this time. "Okay," she said quietly. "Teach me how not to explode."
I exhaled smoke toward the ceiling. "That's the spirit. Rule one — don't try to control chaos. You negotiate with it. Like a stubborn demon or a drunk uncle at Christmas."
"Rule two?"
"Don't trust anyone who tells you they understand the multiverse," I said, taking a drag. "They're either lying or already dead."
Wanda laughed softly — for the first time. The House creaked approvingly.
And somewhere deep in its shifting walls, I felt Cain's laughter too — like an echo, a reminder.
Caretaker, he'd called me.
Bloody fantastic
The House of Mystery wasn't quiet.
It pretended to be — fire crackling in the old hearth, faint hum of candlelight, Wanda sitting lotus-style in the middle of the great room like some medieval nun trying to find enlightenment while surrounded by cursed furniture. But under all that? The place breathed. Whispered. Judged.
And tonight, it was pissed.
"Focus," Strange said from across the room, arms folded in his immaculate cloak-of-many-egos stance. He looked like a magician who never once accidentally summoned something with teeth. After the bald one dropped this stray at my feet he's been at wand hq helping out he's also volunteered to help train the chaos child.
"I am focusing," Wanda snapped, her voice thick with Sokovian accent and irritation. "I'm just… distracted."
"Distracted?" I asked, slamming into the room backward as a seven-foot-tall corpse sewn together by regret and lightning lumbered after me. "Oh, I'm sorry, love — didn't realize the undead were interrupting your meditation session!"
She rolled her eyes. "Could you seal the monster quieter? I'm trying to center my chaos field!"
The Frankenstein thing — let's call him Frank for short — roared like a freight train with daddy issues. My coat flared as I dove behind the piano (which, yes, was playing itself — badly).
"Tell that to him!" I shouted, pointing with my cigarette hand.
It's hard to look heroic when you're covered in dust and sarcasm, but I do my best.
Strange flicked his wrist, golden runes snapping through the air. "That isn't one of mine, Constantine."
"Yeah, no shit, Sherlock Sorcerer! He's one of the House's bedtime stories gone off its meds!"
The House itself groaned as I said that — the chandeliers shaking, portraits turning their eyes away like disapproving relatives.
Wanda sighed, standing slowly, the red glow of her chaos magic coiling around her fingers. "You said this place was tamed."
"Yeah, well," I grunted, ducking a flying chair, "it's got a temper. Probably learned that from me." Side stepping a newly made staircase
⸻
The Frankenstein creature smashed its fist through a bookshelf, roaring with more pain than anger. Old tomes rained like ash. One of them — Mary Shelley's original manuscript, if the House was to be believed — fluttered open midair, pages turning on their own.
Strange lifted a hand to stop it, but I barked, "Don't touch that! You'll only piss it off more."
He glared at me. "You pissed it off by existing."
"Story of my life."
"You're a disgrace to the mystic arts."
"And you're a walking ego wrapped in a bathrobe," I shot back. "See? Balance."
Wanda let out a little snort before pretending to cough. "Children," she muttered.
"Excuse me?" Strange said.
"I said children," she repeated, eyes glowing faintly. "You're both worse than Pietro when he doesn't get breakfast."
From the couch, Pietro stirred, mumbling in his sleep. "Tell… the British one… to shut up…"
Then he went right back to snoring. Cozy little apocalypse, this is.
⸻
Frank swung at me again, and I ducked just in time to grab a candleholder and carve a sigil midair. It flared blue — not enough to stop him, but enough to stall the punch. The creature froze for half a second, trembling, half-corporeal, like he wasn't sure if he was supposed to exist or not.
"Alright, big lad," I said, stepping forward carefully. "You're not real, yeah? You're a story. Which means you're made of words. And I know words better than anyone."
Wanda, eyes still closed, said, "You also say more useless ones than anyone."
"Not helping, love!"
Strange floated forward now, cloak flaring dramatically — probably rehearsed that move in front of a mirror. "The story's form is unstable. The House is bleeding its own memories."
"Yeah," I grunted. "Kinda like a drunk god vomiting out fanfiction."
The House rumbled. A light flickered.
It didn't appreciate the comparison.
"Fine, fine!" I said to the ceiling. "You're a prestigious drunk god vomiting out fanfiction."
A low, approving hum.
Wanda actually laughed this time.
"That's not funny," Strange said.
"It's a little funny," Wanda countered.
I grinned. "Finally, someone with taste."
⸻
The monster roared again, chest sparking with arcs of electric energy.
He lunged.
I tossed a rune-laced playing card into the air, muttering an incantation I'd lifted off a dead priest and heavily edited for my own use. The card exploded in a spiral of blue fire, wrapping around Frank's limbs, pinning him mid-motion.
"Alright, big fella," I said, circling him, cigarette glowing like a star in the dark. "You're not meant to be here. You're just a ghost story the House spat up because some idiot — me — tried to probe the chaos layer."
Strange raised a brow. "You admit fault? Remarkable."
"Oh, don't get too excited, doc. I said 'some idiot,' not that it was my fault."
Wanda smirked. "You're hopeless."
"Not hopeless," I said. "Resourceful."
With a sharp gesture, I slammed my hand against the House's floorboards. Ancient runes glowed under my boots — Cain's signature symbols, the ones I barely understood.
The walls pulsed. The air warped.
Frank screamed as he unraveled into words — literal text — fluttering away like burning pages.
And then… silence.
The fire crackled again. The piano played a single, slow chord.
Pietro snored.
⸻
Wanda opened one eye. "You done?"
I lit another cigarette. "Mostly."
"You made it sound like the end of the world."
"It was the end of the world," I said. "Just a very small, literary one."
Strange sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Constantine, you need to understand—"
"I understand perfectly," I said, cutting him off. "Your entire life is about control. Mine's about cleaning up after the universe decides control is a joke."
He glared. "You mock what you don't understand."
"I don't understand?? And you preach what you can't live," I said, flicking my lighter closed. "We all play our parts, Stevie."
"Don't call me—"
"Sure thing, Steve."
Wanda giggled again, and for a moment, even the House seemed amused — its walls giving a soft, echoing creak that almost sounded like laughter.
I looked at her — the way she was smiling despite the exhaustion, the faint shimmer of red still lingering around her hands. "You're getting better, you know."
She met my eyes. "At magic?"
"At ignoring the apocalypse while meditating," I said. "That's a rare skill."
Her smile grew. "Must've learned it from the best."
"Oi," I said, mock offended. "Flattery doesn't work on me."
"Yes, it does."
"Yeah, alright, it does."
⸻
For a long while, the three of us just sat there — Strange pretending to meditate, Pietro mumbling in his sleep, Wanda glowing faintly with quiet confidence, and me, wondering when exactly I started giving a damn about these people.
The House hummed softly again — content, or maybe just biding its time.
"Y'know," I muttered, staring into the flames, "for a building that nearly ate my soul, it's starting to feel a bit like home."
Wanda smiled, resting her chin on her knees. "Then maybe you're not such a lost soul after all."
I smirked. "Careful, love. Say things like that, and the universe starts paying attention."
She raised an eyebrow. "And what's the worst that could happen?"
The fire flickered blue for just a second.
The House chuckled — low, knowing almost everything, due to its age.
I sighed. "You really shouldn't ask questions like that."
Maybe these kids weren't so bad after all.