Ghostlight (20 page)

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Authors: Marion Zimmer Bradley

BOOK: Ghostlight
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“Was it?” Julian asked with indifference. He carefully worked the spoon between Light's slack lips, dribbling the honey-brandy mixture over her tongue.
“You're not going to tell me that what happened tonight was a manifestation of Thorne Blackburn!” Truth said, trying unsuccessfully to suppress the memory of the transformation of the photo and the visitation of the night before.
“I bow to your superior knowledge of the Blackburn Work,” Julian said coolly, conveying another spoonful of liquid into Light's mouth. Was it Truth's imagination,
or was a little color returning to the girl's pale cheeks? “But if there's really something to discuss, we can do it once Light is settled.”
Spoonful by spoonful Julian fed Light the mixture, until by the end of the mug there was a pale stain of color across her cheeks. Her skin seemed warmer, and her breathing had deepened into natural sleep. Gently, Truth laid her down and tucked the covers up around her again.
“All right,” Julian said, laying aside the spoon and mug. “Now we'll talk. Come with me.”
 
Julian's room was on the same floor as Truth's, on the opposite side of the hollow square forming the second story of Shadow's Gate. He had taken, as was nearly inevitable, the master suite of the house, the rooms that Thorne Blackburn would have had a quarter of a century ago.
He led Truth into a room decorated in gray and dark blue, its furniture typifying the opulent modernity that was the mark of Julian's possession of Shadow's Gate. Truth sat down gratefully on a couch of dark gray velvet that cupped her body like a sheltering hand.
“A drink—we both need one.” Julian moved to the sleekly modern rosewood liquor cabinet and poured, bringing Truth two fingers of amber fire in a short heavy glass. She sipped, and felt its revivifying heat slide down her throat and enter her blood.
“What are you going to tell the others?” Truth asked after a moment.
“The truth—as I perceive it. Thorne indicated in his magickal diary that once the Work was begun, manifestations of this sort could be expected. Of course, Light is especially vulnerable, being a medium attuned to the Work. I'll warn her, and make sure Irene stays with her—she'll know the dangers better than anyone.”
Julian sipped at his drink, leaning back against the cabinet, the lean, angular, male lines of his body faintly
gilded by the light from the lamp. An aura of danger hung about him, as if he were some great jungle cat—but unlike the tigers in the zoo, Julian Pilgrim was not safely caged.
“And if the cause is something other than Blackburn's … work?” Truth said, with what she felt was admirable restraint.
“The precautions should work just as well,” Julian said briefly. “But I'm sorry; I'm tired, and so it sounds as if I'm being flip. I don't mean to minimize your own involvement—and bravery. Whatever you believe the cause to be, at least we agree that the danger tonight was mortal. You did wonderfully in the face of it.”
It was a little disturbing to Truth to realize how happy his praise made her feel; how cherished—as if nothing were good or bad, worthwhile or worthless, until Julian had passed judgment on it and told her what it should be. Somewhere deep inside herself, Truth recognized the insidiousness of this new trap and began, instinctively, to fight it. She drew a deep breath before she spoke.
“I've discovered some things about Shadow's Gate that lead me to believe that it's the focus for paranormal energy—or, as laymen say, that it's haunted. I've found out enough about its history to make a pretty good argument for knowing the primary source focus of the phenomena; it could probably be fairly easily neutralized. I'd like to gather more evidence, though, so if I could just put a call in to the Institute, they could get a team over here by the weekend; Monday at the latest. They won't be in your way—”
“No.” Julian smiled to take the sting out of it, but his refusal was absolute.
“But—Please see things from my point of view, Julian; an opportunity of this magnitude, with such potential for documentation—”
“With such potential for sensationalization, you mean: ‘Ghosts Walk in Murder House'; ‘Blackburn Haunts
Shadowkill.' I'm surprised at you for falling prey to such animal superstition; the only thing Shadow's Gate is haunted by, Truth, is memories, and I'm not going to have my house overrun by pimply-faced grad students in
Ghostbusters
T-shirts at such a critical time in my work.”
But it was precisely during this critical time that the haunting needed to be investigated. Manifestations could feed off psychic talents—Dylan's team often “fed” a ghost to make it appear. Experienced researchers could trigger psychic phenomena at sensitive sites—and even, according to some researchers,
create
it out of nothing more than the human will.
Was this so very different than magick?
Whether it was or was not, the need for studying—and, on the basis of her experience this evening, dissipating—the psychic energy at Shadow's Gate was vital. She had to find some way to persuade Julian that she was right, but Truth already knew that a head-on collision was not the way. She must divert the subject and lead it back around at a more propitious time.
“There's something I need to know about Blackburn,” Truth said quickly. “I think you'll know the answer. Were there any other of Blackburn's children at Shadow's Gate in nineteen sixty-nine?”
“Well, yes,” Julian said, almost apologetically. “There was Light.”
Truth gaped at him, thinking this was almost too pat. Julian saluted her with his glass, in token of the fact that he was about to deliver himself of a lecture.
“Thorne, as you'll already have noticed, was not unattractive to women. We know of at least two dozen women with which he had, shall we say, relationships during his career, and that hardly begins to count the, er, one-night stands. There were about fourteen women among those people living at Shadow's Gate in nineteen sixty-nine, and it's fairly clear that Thorne had slept with
all of them at one time or another. In light of all this, it's actually surprising that he didn't father more children, and not just the ones we know of.”
“How many were there?” Truth asked.
“There's you, of course,” Julian said, smiling faintly. “There's Light, whose mother was probably a woman named Debra Winwood—nobody's really sure, including Light, and Winwood's dead now so we can't exactly ask her.”
“So Light is my sister,” Truth said slowly. A sister, lost for all these years, but hers now, to care for and to cherish. “What happened to her, after … ?”
“Well, when the police closed the place down after the mess in 'sixty-nine, most of the children living at Shadow's Gate ended up going into the so-called child welfare system. The only reason you escaped was because you had an aunt to take you—and because she looked pretty respectable. The others were simply … confiscated, vanishing into foster care. It took me years, and thousands of dollars spent on private detectives, to find Light.” Julian splashed his glass full again and took a long pull of the fiery spirit.
“Were there others?” Truth prompted.
There was a long hesitation before Julian spoke. “A few. I'm not really sure; no one in Blackburn's Circle seems to have thought it very important to note the parentage of the children at Shadow's Gate.”
“But surely Irene … ?” Truth said.
“Irene does not remember … quite what she thinks she does. Asking questions to which she has no answers will only upset her,” Julian said.
This was the second time that Julian had cautioned Truth against questioning residents of Shadow's Gate. Why?
“What can you tell me about the children?” she said.
Julian smiled disarmingly. “You're being very patient with me. I'm afraid I don't know much. Blackburn's children
haven't been lucky—yourself excepted, of course. There was one more that Blackburn acknowledged, but he's almost certainly dead by now.”
There was a pause. “Who?” Truth said, when it became obvious that Julian would volunteer nothing more. But when he spoke, he was so forthcoming that Truth decided she'd imagined his reluctance.
“Your—and Light's—half brother, born back in 'sixty, as far as I can tell, mother unknown again. Thorne seems to have taken an atypical interest in his children, keeping them with him and seeing to their care. It almost makes up for his rather original sense of naming.”
“Truth and Light,” Truth said, with a rueful smile. “And the boy?”
“Pilgrim,” Julian admitted. “It gave me quite a turn to find my surname there in one of Thorne's magickal diaries, but it's a rather intriguing coincidence, nothing more. The boy got his name from the fact that Thorne considered himself a pilgrim in the world of men, an emissary of the
sidhe.
”
“I see,” Truth said. She suddenly remembered, with a palpable flash of disquiet, that her purse—with
Venus Afflicted
in it—was downstairs where she'd dropped it, probably in the Blackburn Library. She wanted to leap up and reclaim it at once, but that would be far too suspicious. The purse was shut. No one had any reason to go through it.
But thinking of it reminded her that there was a way she could get what she was after.
“I hope you'll change your mind about having the house investigated, but that decision is certainly yours to make,” Truth began craftily. Julian frowned sharply, but she ignored it. “And by the way, I nearly forgot to say anything in all the fuss, but someone's been in my room. Some extremely valuable pieces of jewelry are missing.”
Julian's turquoise gaze fixed on her with sharp intensity.
“Do you think I ought to go to the police?” Truth asked, striving to keep her voice innocent.
Their gazes locked, and held. Truth did not back down; she felt neither fear nor shame—only the clean bright joy of crossing swords with a worthy adversary, using weapons understood by both. Her heart beat faster, and both pain and weariness were washed away by the hot, resplendent tide of conflict. There was nothing of man and woman in it, nor of rich and poor: This was how equals strove, on equal terms, to see which brow would carry the wreath of triumph.
And so, avoiding the snare that was the dark side of trust, the abdication of all responsibility, she stepped into the opposite trap, although she did not realize that for some time to come.
At last Julian laughed and looked away. “You'll understand that I don't want any strangers here—but I don't see why you shouldn't hunt for all the ghosts you like, providing you can do it by yourself. We'll help, of course—in fact, when I consider the matter, it might be valuable practice for Donner and the others to see what approach Dame Science takes to the Hidden World. But no one else, Truth.”
The terms were plain.
“Thank you,” Truth said warmly. Getting Julian to do what she wanted was exciting, as if it gave them some sort of intimate connection that could be a prelude to further intimacies later. “I'll call the Institute tomorrow and see if I can get them to ship me my beads and rattles,” she added lightly. She'd won, after all, and could afford to be generous.
Julian crossed to her and took the empty glass from her hands, effectively signaling the end of the interview.
“We'd probably better go on down to dinner. They'll have saved a plate for us, so we don't need to hurry on that account, but I told Irene to hold back dessert—
there's an announcement I've been wanting to make. Go on ahead; I'll follow in a few minutes.”
 
Truth, intent upon reclaiming her purse, was only too happy to go. In light of the earlier manifestation she entered the library warily, but everything was normal, even to the hagiographic portrait of Blackburn over the mantel. It was odd to think that an event of such magnitude could have occurred here less than an hour ago and disturbed no one, but Shadow's Gate was a big house and well made—in all probability, the others in the house had heard nothing.
And so much for a certain someone's claims of great psychic power! If Fiona were as sensitive to paranormal phenomena as she claims, she'd have been right here!
Truth tried to be sorry for her poor opinion of Fiona—after all, she barely knew the woman—but she couldn't manage it. Fiona Cabot was a type Truth had encountered often while working at the Margaret Beresford Institute: people who used the justification of great psychic ability to excuse a complete inability to adhere to even the most basic standards of common politeness. And the nastiest ones, Truth found, were the least psychic, as if possession of that gift ran by some inverse relationship to boorishness.
She found her purse sitting right where she'd dropped it on the library floor. A quick glance inside revealed that its contents were undisturbed. Truth breathed a heartfelt thanksgiving—to whom, she wasn't sure—and slung it up over her shoulder.

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