Mathieu (12 page)

“About two hundred years ago, this house came to the attention of some locals. As you can imagine, the comings and goings and mystical workings were hard to conceal. In order to keep our secrets, we decided to hide in plain sight. Some children spotted what they assumed to be the Virgin Mary and the church proclaimed a miracle. We built up the monastery and pilgrims come from all over the world to visit. We keep them in the front part of the complex, and we stay to ourselves in the
back.
It works amazingly well, and the power of all that prayer helps power our workings.”

“Fascinating.” Mathieu turned to look at the door again, trying to work up the courage to walk outside.

“Isn’t it?” Hugh put a hand on the wall. “Every support beam in the original house is carved with spells of protection and concealment. Isn’t it interesting how men of God used the very powers they were trying to destroy to protect themselves?”

“The ends justify the means, perhaps?” Mathieu spoke absently, his eyes still on the door as he breathed deeply to calm himself.

“Exactly.” Hugh smiled. “I’m so glad you understand that concept. It makes this so much easier. I thought you might predate the saying, but I suspect you’ve seen it in practice before.”

Mathieu turned to look at Hugh before turning back to the door again.

Marcus walked up, bag in hand. “Are we ready?”

Hugh slapped Marcus on the back. “Good luck to you, son. I know you’ll do well despite everything.” He looked meaningfully at Mathieu. “After all, how many people are at De Gaulle at any given moment? Five thousand? Ten? And then at Kennedy in New York? Ten? Fifteen? Twenty thousand? And in New York City? A million people? Six million? You’ll have your hands full getting him to the airport on roads filled with tens of thousands of people, much less through security and customs and everything else that comes with it.”

Marcus glared at the man while Mathieu’s eyes grew large at the thought of being surrounded by that many people with no wards. No protection. Nothing but their anger and fears and sadness and darkness.

“That is so uncool, man.” Eddie’s voice came from the back of the hallway. “It’s not like he isn’t freaked out enough already. Did you have to do that?”

“I can’t do this.” Mathieu spoke in a strangled voice. “I can’t.” He backed into the wall and stared at the group of people in the hallway. There were too many of them here in this safe place, much less on the
other
side of that door. How could he even have imagined making any kind of journey? “I can’t. I can’t trust myself.”

“Mathieu,” Jenn came to stand in front of him. “Mathieu, you have to. We have to get you to Kinderhook and this is the only way.”

Mathieu shook his head and cringed away from her. “I can’t.”

“There is another way.” Hugh’s voice was silky. “You know there is.”

Mathieu shut his eyes, rubbing his hands so hard that he thought he might start bleeding. There were too many people in the room and they were all looking at him, wanting something from him. It took everything in him to not curl up into a small ball and weep in fear and self-loathing.

“What are you talking about?” Marcus sounded angry, Mathieu thought with a detached part of his mind—the part that wasn’t in full-on panic.

Hugh spoke again, his voice smooth. “Teleportation. The use of magic to move people or objects from one place to another.”

“Bullshit.” Marcus sounded even angrier. The very thought made Mathieu even more frightened. “You know as well as I do that’s only a theory. No one knows how to do that.”

“He does.” Mathieu opened his eyes to find Hugh pointing directly at him. “You know he does. Those things do it all the time. He did it. How do you think he got to Rome? To the mountains? A Greyhound bus?”

Mathieu looked over at Marcus, who was looking back at him. “Do you?”

Closing his eyes and taking a deep breath, Mathieu nodded stiffly.

“See. You don’t even have to leave this house to get where you need to be.” Hugh’s voice was right next to Mathieu’s ear. “He can tell you how to do it.” Mathieu turned away from the voice, eyes closed tightly.

“
Mathieu?” Jenn’s voice was full of concern. Mathieu opened his eyes to see her exchanging a look with Marcus. She turned and looked back at him. “Can you show us how to do that?”

“Can I? Yes. Will I? No.” Mathieu wrapped his arms around himself and took a deep, gasping breath to prepare himself to step outside and deal with the world.

“Why not?” Hugh’s voice was full of contempt. Mathieu looked at the older man who even now had his lip drawn up in a sneer. “We can’t use the spell against you. It’s not dangerous to you in any way for us to know. It only helps you get to where you need to be to save my daughter.” There was a pause before he spoke again. “Maybe we should bind you and compel you to show us the spell and get you to kill that thing.”

Mathieu drew himself up to face the man. “If you bind me, I swear to you that you will have to compel me to every little thing. I will fight you step by step, breath by breath. I fought a creature darker than you could ever imagine for longer than your Foundation has been in existence. Your daughter will wither and die of age before you could force me to walk across this room, much less teach you a spell.”

Hugh’s ears turned red, then his cheeks and then his entire face. His eyes narrowed with anger. Something inside of Mathieu uncoiled, feeling the emotion, wanting it.

“Wait.” Jenn’s voice broke the tension. “Mathieu, please show us how to do it. Please.”

Mathieu turned to look at her and then back at the door behind which all of world waited. Swallowing hard, he turned back to her and spoke quietly. “I won’t power the spell. I will leave nothing of myself here.”

“Of course not.” Hugh jeered. “But don’t worry. We can do that. All you have to do is show us how to do it.”

“Shut up, Hugh.” Marcus’ voice was flat and angry. “I don’t care who powers it as long as it gets us where we need to go.”

“
But of course.” Hugh bowed his silvered head mockingly to Mathieu and then to Marcus. “If you’ll follow me…” He shouldered his way past Marcus and Eddie and into a back hallway. “This way.”

Marcus looked at Jenn who nodded. They both picked up their bags and followed Hugh into the back of the house. Eddie hesitated and then walked up to Mathieu and took his bag in addition to his own. “He’s an asshole but we have to follow him.” Eddie said it quietly but firmly.

Hugh led them through hallways and passageways to the back of the house. Then through another ornately carved door and down a flight of stairs hewn from good stone that tingled with residual energy through Mathieu’s shoes.

Pausing before another door, this one of black wood that glowed with spells in the dim light, Hugh turned back. “This is the best warded workroom we have. If you can’t work here, you can’t work.”

He drew out a heavy key and used it to turn an ancient lock. Tumblers shifted and moved and the door swung open with a groan revealing another flight of stairs down.

Mathieu paused at the threshold, peering down into the even dimmer light below. “You okay?” Eddie was still bringing up the rear, baggage in hand.

“I’m walking into the deepest, darkest, most spell-bound room of a duplicitous, dishonest order with a man who wants nothing more to enslave me, and you ask if I’m okay?” He glanced at Eddie. “No offense meant.”

“None taken.” Eddie shrugged. “You call it as you see it. But do you have any other option of getting away from here without going to pieces again?”

“No. I don’t even know how I managed it last night, truth be told.”

“You barely did. You held on by your fingernails and sheer willpower.” Eddie shifted his weight. “Are you going down? These aren’t getting any lighter.”

Mathieu
took a deep breath and walked forward into the dimly lit passage. The magic was even stronger here, almost vibrating the air.

He would not use any more of his power here. He should have known that going in, before his set his wards last night. Now that he’d drawn them back into himself he was not going to leave anything behind here that could be used against him. No skin, no hair, no fragment of himself, no residual power. Nothing.

He didn’t need to use his power to illuminate the spells warding the room. They were so strong and laid on so deeply they revealed himself to his gaze with no urging.

His feet finally hit the earthen floor of the cellar and the buzzing in the soles of his shoes stopped. The ground had been cleansed and was ready for a new working.

It was a large room. Stone walls rose around them and met the wood beams of the house above them. The only concession to the modern age was the electric lights that had been strung above. Without those bare bulbs, he’d almost believe he was back in the days of his youth.

A small table sat in the far corner and was covered with various tools. A sword, a knife, a flask of water, an oil lamp, rope and various other items.

Mathieu glared at Hugh. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d almost say that you were anticipating this.”

Hugh shrugged and repeated grimly, “The ends justify the means. Do you want to activate the wards or shall I?”

“Be my guest.” Mathieu stepped away from the wall as Hugh made a gesture and the room went still and dead.

“Are they strong enough to suit you?” Mathieu could hear the sneer in the older man’s voice.

“Very strong. I suspect they’ve been added to over the years.” The strength of the wards was very worrying, actually. He knew there was no way he could physically fight his way through them or break them. If they realized that, they could keep him here forever.

Marcus,
Jenn and Eddie had put the baggage in one corner. “Mathieu,” Jenn said quietly to get his attention. “How do we do this? Tell us what to do.”

Reaching into that store of knowledge that he loathed, he spoke without thinking. “You must inscribe an
Orbis
—a perfect circle--onto the good, hard earth. There must be no flaw, no beginning, no end. Make this big enough to surround all you would carry with you. Then inscribe a second
Orbis
outside the first, also perfect. Make the gap between large enough to hold your spellwork.”

“Here goes nothing,” Marcus grumbled as he grabbed the sword from the table and began to trace a circle.

Mathieu watched his progress and then spoke quietly. “No, Marcus. It must be a perfect circle.”

Marcus straightened up, rubbed out what he had done with his foot and started again.

Again Mathieu spoke. “No, Marcus. It must be perfect.”

“I haven’t even drawn a foot yet.”

“It is flawed.”

“How can you tell?” Now Marcus sounded irritated.

“I can tell. Don’t argue, just do.”

With a sigh, Marcus erased his previous effort and made a gesture to Jenn. She grabbed the rope from the table and stood in the middle of the room. Marcus grabbed one end of the rope and measured out a few feet, pulled it taut and then put the sword into the earth with a glare in Mathieu’s direction. He pulled the point through the earth while he circled Jenn precisely. The circle was perfect, no beginning and no end.

Jenn pulled out another six inches of rope and Marcus made another circle, perfect the first time. He wound the rope carefully and then looked at Mathieu with a triumphant look.

“Well enough, I suppose. Now inscribe the cardinals in their true and precise locations.”

“How are we supposed to know that?” Marcus sounded even more irritated.

“
You simply know. Are you not attuned enough with the Earth to feel it?” Mathieu started rubbing his arms again.

“Uhm, NO. I have no clue what you’re talking about.”

Mathieu raised his eyebrows and then walked forward. “Give me the knife.”

Eddie took it from the table and passed it to him. Mathieu studied it for a moment. It was a poor excuse for a weapon, he thought. It was silver hilted and the blade was poorly forged. It would have snapped at the first encounter with armor.

But that was not its purpose. Gingerly stepping over the edges of the circle, Mathieu walked to the center. With a nod to Jenn, he closed his eyes and focused.

Eyes still closed, he took a step to his left and over, crouched down and incised a character with three sharp slashes of the blade and three quick stabs of the point. “
Lo Nord.
” He intoned the words with musical note.

Up again and to his right and down again to slash and stab at the ground.
“L’Est.”

Another turn and down to inscribe again.
“Lo sud.”
And again.
“L’oest.”

He then stood and opened his eyes to look at Jenn. “Where do you want to go?”

She blinked in surprise, looked over to her husband and back again. “Where can we go?”

Mathieu gave a small half-smile. “Anywhere you wish, my lady.”

“Can we go right where it happened?” Marcus stepped over the edge of the circles, careful not to mar the edges. “I mean right into the very place.”

Wincing at the thought, Mathieu spoke slowly. “I would not recommend it. If there are any residual spells or traps there, the energy of this spell might activate them. Or it might draw the attention of the creature you’re hunting before you’re ready.”

“
How close can we get without that happening?” Marcus rubbed his chin.

“I don’t know.”

“That’s not an answer.” Hugh stepped forward. “Being evasive isn’t going to help kill that thing and get my daughter back.”

“It is the answer you’re getting.” With a sigh, Mathieu tried again. “We are moving from one place to another. We do not want to take the same path the one who took your daughter did because if we do we shall most assuredly encounter it before we are ready. Which leads me back to my original question: Where do you want to go?”

“How close can we get without having anything nasty happen to us? I’d like to avoid nasty at all costs.” Eddie leaned against the far wall and fiddled with the oil lamp from the table, but his posture was tense.

“If that were your goal, I’d have suggested you not involve yourself with this undertaking in the first place,” Mathieu said dryly. “But as that is no longer possible, I would think a few hundred yards would be sufficient.”