Neophyte / Adept (21 page)

“You mean like you do? Is that why you are here? Did you
see––something? Me? Did you see something with me?”

“Camille asked me to come here,” said Asher. “She wrote to
me about you. She said you deserved the right to look, even though her
husband––and these were her words––worried that you
might
overreact
, if you saw what was
happening.
Halsey needs to know
, said
Camille,
for her own illumination, WHAT
THESE THINGS ARE,”
said Asher.

“What what things are?” I said.

Asher blinked.

“Do you know, Miss Rookmaaker, who and what, the Dioscuri
are?”

“I have heard that name before,” I said. “But I do not know
what they are.”

“They are here with us––in Rome,” said Asher.
“Even Prague is nervous. They have sent their emissaries, the two twins. Two
very deadly men. Never speak to them.”

“I haven’t. I won’t. But
who
are the Dioscurvy?”

“Dioscuri.”
Asher
trailed his torch along the rounded walls of the werewolf tomb. I saw the
figures battling in two dimensions. “The stuccoes tell the tale of the First
War,” he said. “The Dioscourges, on the other hand, tell the tale of the
Second
.”

I didn’t follow. “But what Second?” I said. “I thought there
was only one war. The First War. You mean to say, there’s another?”

“The Dioscuri have, indeed, begun to predict of late a
second war,” said Asher.

“You mean...”

“They are Seers. The most powerful kind. But they are
untrustworthy.”

“But
what
are they?”
I asked.

Asher shook his head.

“Not just what,
who
.
They are...
alive
in some strange
sense. Avoid them. And most importantly, the twins. They will be missing you
soon. I would like to meet you here tomorrow night. We will throw our minds
together, eh, and cast out, to see what we may see. I have certain
things
I wish to show you. Among them
Lennox. And the Agonies.”

* * *

Time moved like sludge, when it used to flop out of the taps
in my old apartment building. The clawfooted tub reminded me of Lennox. I
wanted to wallow in memories of him but I couldn’t afford to right now. Lux was
going to be showing me what dark aether looked like today, and I couldn’t miss
it. I got out of my bed and got dressed. Lia was already at breakfast when I
got there. I was piling my tray up with food––calf’s liver and
sautéed onions––when I turned and saw Ballard. He had a Succo del
Gatto in his hand. It was thanks to the werewolves no doubt that our menu had
become, shall we say, more K-9-friendly. Ballard’s dog’s body looked tired,
careworn. “I suppose I would shirk my responsibilities,
too
, if I thought I was special,” he said to one of the betas,
whose name I didn’t remember. Ballard moved on as if he hadn’t seen me.

I told Lia about it but she told me not to think about it.

“It’s my brother’s misfortune that he considers himself the
only important person in the world. We need to concentrate on
us
now. Otherwise, we’ll get left
behind.”

“So have you decided on your House, Lia?”

“I dunno,” she said. She dug through her robes. I saw some
of the same brochures I had received. And some other ones. “This one says they
have an excellent library full of arcana, but I’ve always felt pulling your
face
out
of a book to be more
beneficial when it comes to deflecting a whammy or some other curse, don’t you?
I don’t want to suffer the effects of the kibosh just because my eyes don’t
work anymore because of all the
books
I’ve been reading, you know what I mean?”

“I guess,” I said. “What about that one?”

“Ravenseal,” she said, handing it to me.

I flipped through it. It showed lots of pictures of Prague.
And was that––?

“The Districts of Magic,” said Lia.

It was an alcove of the oldest Magical city.

“Entirely magical population,” she said.

It looked like a combination of algae-infested stone
masonry, and dark forbidding alleyways. That was where the Vampire Hunters and
other monsters lived. “And also,” said Lia, when I told her this, “it’s where
the House of Houses resides. And I don’t mean Ravenseal.”

I looked at her questioningly.

“Honestly, you need to read more,” she said, which I thought
was contradictory. “Ravenseal isn’t the be-all and end-all. They’re just a
House. One of hundreds, maybe even thousands. It is
this
House,” she said, taking the brochure and flipping through it
to one of the pages, and tapping the picture,
“that
is the Master House. The one beholden to none. They don’t
recruit anyone.”

I looked.

“Apparently the twins are from it,” said Lia.

A huge and ancient edifice soared above the rest of the
Districts of Magic, there in Prague. Its golden dome flashed in the
non-existent sun. The Master House.

“Everybody
wants
to go there. Including Veruschka Ravenseal. Or so I’ve heard,” said Lia. “All
the Mistresses are jealous of her, because apparently her time is coming; she’s
going to be made a member. The Master House
will
select her; it’s apparently an opportunity that cannot be refused.”

Lia petered out. “Is that where you want to go?” I asked
her.

But Lia had dropped her fork in her
fegato alla Roma
, and was trying to fish it out.

“I can’t even
eat
like a werewolf anymore,” she said. “Where do I want to go? I want to go here.
To Rome. I don’t want to go someplace else. This is my home, Halsey. Besides, I
would miss Gaven too much.”

Lia got this faraway look in her eyes––

“We’re supposed to be married soon,” she said. “He asked,
did I tell you? I can’t wait to go on our honeymoon....”

I had lost Lia. I continued to look at the Ravenseal
brochure, but really I was thinking about something else.

* * *

It didn’t escape me that certain marks (X-amount out of
such-and-such) had been awarded to the Initiates, based upon their performances
at the Wiccaning, and the marks had been posted for others to
see––just not us; and just not our Marks, but our futures were in
the balance. Who would go where was more important than anything else.

Lux snapped his fingertips like a pair of dull flints,
trying to spark a blaze; finally he seemed satisfied because his band of
Virtuosity glowed brilliantly, and he said, “I can only
show
it to you. I don’t go there myself. Unless in a moment of
absolute need.”

The aether, he meant––the bad kind.

“It really is much easier if we all form a circle,” he said.

So, with Lux directing us, the other Neophytes and I formed
a circle, linking our hands; it was just my luck I had Vittoria for this
handfast, gripping my palm with her own, sweaty one. Lia was on my other side.

“Your hand feels like a dead fish, V.”

“If you say so,
H
.”

“Ladies...” Lux closed his eyes. I could see something curl
down from his delta, but if he whispered magic words or only thought them, I
couldn’t tell. Next second my eyes were closing and it was like we were being
linked, the other Initiates and I.

Everyone was pushing everyone, except it was all in our
heads.

When Lux spoke, it echoed in that distant,
internal-external, near-far, weirdo wacko way, which meant that we were all
talking to each other
without
speaking, using only our minds to communicate. I also had a sense like I was in
a vast mansion with hundreds of locked doors, and also, huge, open, breezy
places; the places the Initiates did and
did
not
want others to see.

“That is why we are called Houses,” said Lux, eliciting a
number of
oohs
and
ahs
from the excitable Neophytes. Any
kind of secret explanation for anything to do with magic sent a thrill down my
back. “And, really, why twelve is all we can ever be. Any more and it doesn’t
become a House, so much as a train station.”

“Choo choo...” said someone.

The other Neophytes and I spent a few minutes running in and
out of each other’s bedrooms. All good-naturedly. Then Lux said: “Let me show
you one of the
basements
.”

I saw it. Like a dark nebulous cloud. When I went to reach
for it, I could not touch it.

“That is the aether. The dark aether,” said Lux. “Some of
you may have experienced it during your Wiccanings.”

I went for it.

“Selwyn had it,” I said.

Somewhere I could feel two people’s hands in my own, but it
was really far away.

“He used it to hide from me. I couldn’t get through it,” I
said.

“We all have a little dark aether,” said Lux.

“You said the Mark is positive aether. Can it not reside in
the body where the dark aether is?”

“A trenchant and profound question-slash-observation,
Vittoria, of soon-to-be-Ravenseal,” said Lux. “You may think about studying
Marks at some later date. To answer your question,
I don’t know. Maybe.”

“Veruschka said there were some places she couldn’t go, when
she was in my mind. Was this what she meant by that?” Vittoria continued.

“Yes,” said Lux.

I didn’t tell them that this must’ve been what Maria had
seen in me, when she said I had
dark
powers lurking there
. The negative aether.

So Vittoria had it too.

“I got the sense that negative aether was like ‘dark magic;’
that it was really bad,” said Vittoria.

“Some would think...” said Lux.

That went into my memory bank; I would have to look at it
further.

“All forms of energy can be abused,” said Lux. “Let me see
if I can just
tap
into it for a sec.”

One of the Initiates panicked. “Won’t it race into us,
Professor?”

“If I do my job right,” said Lux. The next second, I felt
it.

It was like another world opened up to me. Like I was me,
but not me. Like whoever I was, was over. I was someone
new
.

And the miraculous thing was, I felt really powerful. I mean
death-defyingly jump over whatever impossible thing to jump over powerful.

Lux pulled out and the connection was lost. “Any questions?”
he asked.

Hands went up, before, reflexively, going back down. The
other Initiates didn’t want to give away what Virtue they had become, you see.

Lux said, “It is attractive and forbidding; and it is
powerful and addictive, the dark aether. Better you see it from me, than a
bunch of aetherheads, out on the street.”

Chapter 20
– Seeing Paris

“You told me, yesterday, that you would show me certain
things. I want to know
what
things.
And, above all, how Lennox is doing. I have been so busy and self-absorbed that
I have practically forgotten that he exists,” I said.
“And that’s another thing.
I feel like our relationship was all
some magic spell, but I can’t craft, can I?”

Asher said, “Tell me what you have seen. Before it can be
directed, I have observed that all forms of magic are rambunctious. The
shapeshifter shifts without thinking it, the witch or wizard disappears or
reappears, without meaning to, the vampire kills before it
can understand
why it is even hungry...”

“Do you know about the dark aether?” I asked. We were in the
Columbarium. Asher assured me we had all night.

“I am not a wizard, per se, but yes, I have heard of it.”

“But never seen it?” I said. Despite myself, my voice was
trembling. After all, what Asher claimed to be able to do struck me as nothing
short of dark magic.

I realized suddenly that that was the way the other Wiccans
had been behaving toward Asher, as though they thought he was dangerous, too. I
suddenly felt ashamed.

Each new Wiccan discovery hit me with its own particular
pang. So
this
was why ailuranthropes
were mistrusted? The dark aether. People thought they had it.

“I
should
trust
you,” I said. “Forgive me. I will describe it to you. The dark aether is like
an alien intelligence. You can see it, feel it. But you can never trust it.
Sort of like it thinks for itself.”

“That is
exactly
how the Dioscuri are,” said Asher. “But go on. I want to know what you have
seen.”

I snapped two of my double-jointed Wiccan W digits. They
sparked but did not blaze. To Asher:

“Two voices. Don’t know who they are,” I said. “I’ve heard
them a couple times. I forget what exactly. Something about two of us.
‘She must not become Fledged,’
or some
nonsense. So I guess that means I have time. It’ll be almost a year before I’m
Adept. How long to Fledged is anyone’s guess. But they said that they would try
to kill her––me, whoever I am; so I guess I
don’t
have that long. If I’m her.”

It felt more natural to think of her as being me, and
vice-versa.

Asher nodded, as if this made perfect sense.

“The conduit goes both ways,
into
, and from,” he said. “Although why someone would wish to
broadcast they mean to
kill
you,
Halsey.... No, I choose to believe you are causing this to happen. You said it
has not happened for a while, your mind traveling?”

“Correct.”

“I will keep an eye out,” said Asher. “Interesting
expression. I think I will keep both eyes in, and peeled, except for when I
blink, but you get the gist. I will watch to make sure nothing happens to you.
Meanwhile,
you
, Halsey Rookmaaker,
must continue to concentrate on your
becoming
.
We are at the Gathering, which is safe. There are too many of us here for any
such shenanigans. No one will try to kill you
here
.”

I let Asher believe that; although, I thought, it
would
be the perfect opportunity. If
someone
was
trying to kill me, what
better place? Nobody would know who had done it. Maybe that was the point.
Then, I thought, if they
were
after
me, they, whoever they were,
must think I
could do it
, become fledged!

I did an inner-woohoo and came back to Asher.

“Maybe it’s Marek,” I said. A part of me that I didn’t like
to think about got excited at the mere mentioning of Marek’s name. “Although he
is more of a loner. As in,
one
.
Whoever these people are, there are two of them. One. Two,” I said, holding up
two fingers.

Asher might have thought I was crazy, because he got this
look on his face, so I guessed we were even.

“Are you ready?” he said. “Because I want to show you
something.
How
I do what I do is as
important as what I can do.”

We sat down facing each other, there in the dirt. The torch,
in a bracket, illuminated us darkly.

I became aware of Asher’s eyes.

“You look like you want to read me,” I said.

“You are not wrong.”

“Then why are you hesitating?” I said.

“Because... I am
there
,
in my head, and I am told that you have feelings for this person. His name is
Lennoxlove... Lenoir... correct? He is one of the vampires...?”

I looked at Asher, whose eyes were blind. He could not see
me. He was someplace else. The place Lennox was at. Far, far away.

“I have to warn you, Halsey, that my gift is an unusual one.
I do not merely see. I am a traveler in memories. And a trawler in dreams. I
see things as they are,
as they may be
,
and I see things that were, but have not been for a while. No doubt you can
appreciate why certain ardanes exist forbidding the use of those of my kind?
While I am not a Dioscurus, I have its power. What I will show you is
truth
, however. What they show is only
what they wish others to see. Which is why it is dangerous to put too much
stock in their
visions
.”

“Can you see me?” I said.

“Alas, not what you wish to know––nor would I tell
you, even
if
I were
able––about your parents and whatnot. Nothing is so destructive as
knowing the future. And nothing is as dangerous as the past. I could only help
you to experience what you yourself have already seen, and for that, you have
your own brain. But we can read Lennox, if you wish. He is experiencing the
Agonies this very moment. It is a trial by fire. And I am afraid, you may not
like what you see.”

“But you can show me?”

“Yes, Halsey Rookmaaker. I can show you.
Now
, if you wish.”

He blinked. Suddenly I was staring at him, into his eyes,
which were here with me. I licked my lips.

“Do you think I should look?” I said.

“It’s not for me to say. Look and you will see; for my eyes
have that power. Do you wish to see?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said.

I felt myself being sucked into his eyes. Our surroundings
vanished entirely. All communication was by telepathy alone. We were flying
over countryside. It was dark out. Fires peppered the countryside. I realized
they were house lights. They were becoming fewer and fewer.
Remember what I told you
, he said.
My power is in the seeing. Not in the
direction of my sight.

We came to a place on the other side of daylight, ill-lit,
shrouded by the dark aether itself; the countryside around it barren, craggy,
with scattered houses here and there. I could hear the rush of something or
other, what must’ve been the sea, but it was too far away to tell.

Everything was shrouded in the fog of Asher’s mind.

I told him this, to which he replied, “That’s good. Maybe
you are like an aerial. Intercepting traffic.”

I thought about that; but it didn’t make much sense.

“Never mind that now,” he said. “We are almost... Yes; in
there are two vampires. One of them, I think, is your Lennoxlove.”

“Why are we so far away from everything else?” I said,
looking at the barren countryside.

“Probably,” said Asher,
“because
of the screaming.”
He shushed me and we went inside.

Two vampires were sitting much as Asher and I were, wherever
we had left our bodies, back at the Gathering. I recognized one of them
immediately. Lennox’s eyes were closed. He looked as though he was in deep
meditation. But his body...

Lennox’s body was emaciated-looking, his eyes especially,
the skull so sunken, in some parts, it looked as though he hadn’t eaten in
weeks.
Fed
, I needed to remind
myself. With any supernatural, their particular rhythms overwhelmed me.

I was on Werewolf Standard Time, when I needed to be on
Lennoxwatch.

“Oh, Lennox,” I said, coming to him. “I’m
so
sorry,” I said, but he couldn’t hear
me. His eyelids flickered.

“That is good. I think we will get our opportunity sooner
rather than later,” said Asher.

“What d’you––?”

But before I could inquire further, Lennox’s eyelids opened,
and a couple of things happened simultaneously.

Lennox said, “Halsey?” And Asher and I jumped into his
eyeballs. It was like falling into an April sky. Lennox’s lavender eyes
widened, and somehow both Asher
and
I
had landed, smack dab, in both a time and place I did not recognize.

Cobblestones instead of asphalt.

Huge white-washed buildings.

Clapboard houses.

Real gas lamps.

I followed Lennox as he walked down a narrow moonlit street
in clothes I had never seen him wear before, with Asher at my side. “Where are
we?” I asked.

“Unless I am much mistaken, we are in one of Lennox’s
memories,” said Asher. He shrugged and smiled.

“You mean, you can just jump into people’s memories and
relive them whenever you feel like?”

“Shh,” he said to me. “This is important to Lennox. Pay
attention, now. Let us see what we can see. I have heard that is the purpose of
the Agonies. They are a sieve, Halsey Rookmaaker. For what, I am not sure.”

A carriage pulled by two stallions, came to a standstill
some ways ahead of Lennox, who crouched, in his ill-fitting garments, watching
the scene unfold. Suddenly a horrible scream erupted from the buggy, which
looked like it was about to turn over, it was rocking so fiercely. A woman fell
out of it, and began crawling on her hands and knees. The driver of the
carriage simply sat their, reigns in hand, ignoring her. Lennox leapt forwards.
Out stepped an older gentleman who bent and was about to deliver a backhand
strike to her face, when Lennox made his presence known.

“What do you want?” said the older man.

The aura about Lennox changed. The garments he wore, instead
of looking as though they had been pulled from a trash heap, took on a
different aspect. He simply radiated power. When he took off his jacket, to
give to the lady, he looked
royal
.
She crawled up his leg, which he held out jauntily. His open shirt clashed
daringly with his well-chiseled profile, I saw smirk, as he dared the other man
to say something. Anything.

“Drive on, Rochester. I know a lost cause when I see one,”
said the older man.

He left the woman to Lennox’s ministrations. At once Lennox
helped her to her feet.

“My hero,” she said. She may have been drunk. Her makeup was
smeared. She was in a frock of some sort. It looked turn-of-the-century. But
what century? Just how old was Lennox, anyway?

Less than a century
,
I told myself. Everyone said so.

So this must’ve been around Nineteen Something-or-other. I
didn’t recognize the place. Asher helped me there. “Look!” he said.

Rising in the distance was the Eiffel Tower, so we must’ve
been in Paris. The home, I realized suddenly, of the vampires. If I were to
believe their conceit that they were the only ones.

Perhaps they made that true by enforcement. I had seen
Lennox kill two vampires before.

“Say, whatcha doing here, anyway?”

“You’re drunk,” said Lennox.

“And you’re handsome. You lookin’ for a good time, or you
just like to wander the streets like I do? Only time to get whatcha really
want, at night.”

“Can I drop you somewhere?” said Lennox.

“Not unless you’re going to give me a piggyback ride,” she
giggled. She didn’t look like she would object.

“I had something else in mind,” he said.

“Well, that’s gonna cost you,” said the prostitute.

“I can pay,” said Lennox.

“Just as long as you ain’t one ’a them deadbeats.
Deadbeats,” she said again. “Come with me. Maybe we can find someplace behind a
tree or something.”

She took Lennox’s hand, who did not move.

“Say, you’re kind of cold. What––what are you
doing? No, I don’t want––Don’t––”

He was rising up with her.

The scene changed.

Asher bade me look away. “Once we have seen we cannot
unsee,” he said. “Lennox may not like you knowing these things about him.”

But I couldn’t.

“He told me once,” I said. “Lennox told me that he used to
kill people. It was in his nature back then...”

I watched as Lennox took the prostitute. What I couldn’t
have known, and was unprepared for, was how brutally
cruel
he was, and nonchalant in his cruelty. He played with her as
a cat does a mouse.

“You
want
me?” he
said to her.

“I want to
be
you,” she said.

She clung to him, half drenched in her own blood; it ran
down her front in a great sash. A torrent of blood that coated her naked body.

“You will be, I daresay,” said Lennoxlove, “quite soon
enough. Say hello to death,
mademoiselle
,
for you are with it
now
...”

He lunged at her before she could speak. There was a
powerful exhalation of breath. He left her there on the banks of the Seine. And
I watched, in horror, as he disappeared into the night.

The next night was worse; I met with Asher again, and we
rushed into Lennox’s dreams. His nightmares. Into his very soul!

By then, I was addicted. I didn’t care that it was rude. I
needed it––
had
to see.
Lux’s speeches about the ethics of power were so much hot air. Besides, I had
that sense that Lennox, for want of a better word, could almost
feel
me there. I had his permission. I
had permission of Camille, too, who was almost Lennox’s mother. Perhaps she
thought my overhearing would help him in some way. The Agonies weren’t a
penance, were they?

Lennox was somehow more self-assured, this night. We were at
another day, another memory.