Authors: T.D. McMichael
Neophyte / Adept (32 page)
The light flamed. It quickened and brightened.
The petals of my Mark twisted down my fingertips, which
became like a claw.
I was being ripped from the connection. The Dioscuri were
leaving me. People were flooding into the Star Room. I could see
them––the Wiccans, especially––with their robes like
leaping, silver fish, and their bright heads of hair. But something was wrong.
The werewolves were also there... Lia and Gaven and Ballard. Ballard who was
racing to get to me. I could see him briefly. Who he was and who he
could
be. I think we both had our own
destinies. He would need my help. If anything, it was up to me to protect him.
To prevent the dream from coming true. But the Dioscuri were still in front of
me. I couldn’t get out. Everybody gasped. Lia’s Light shut off as fast as it
had come. I was looking at Selwyn, who was still with me––and then,
the next second, the Dioscuri had flown into him. I saw Selwyn’s
eyes––and the light in them seemed to vanish. He was gone.
“Remember,” they said to me. “Look for
them
.
We will see you again, Halsey Rookmaaker.”
There was a whooshing sound and they were gone, Selwyn with
them. He was taken. They were gone.
I was left staring at an empty space. Lia was stirring. I
looked up and two sets of powerful arms were pulling me and her up.
The werewolves were racing to protect us.
I kept seeing Selwyn’s eyes. And then––nothing.
There was a commotion, bodies pressing in against one
another, the Heads of the various remaining Houses pointing their fingers at
Ballard and Gaven, who were holding onto Lia and I. I saw Locke and some of the
other werewolves. They looked nervous.
“The Dioscuri...” said one witch.
“Did they take him?” said another.
“Selwyn was here, and then just––”
“Good riddance,” said another one.
I saw a familiar head of hair. Mariska Coven’s. She was with
some of the other Wiccans I had never met before.
“Shapeshifters looking out for shapeshifters,” she said. She
pointed her finger at Gaven. It was a long, narrow, bony, evil-looking
implement. Her hair was a mess. “We know where we stand finally, do we, then?
You helped him escape. It’s a
conspiracy
.
And after Selwyn murdered poor Mr. Pendderwenn,” she said.
“Mariska, please,” said Fanishwar Harcort.
But she was overruled by some of the other Wiccans.
“I think we deserve to know exactly what went on here,
and
how Pendderwenn was robbed of its
last remaining member,” said one wizard, an older gentleman in robes the color
of Selwyn’s eyes.
“I’ll tell you how,” said Mariska Coven. “He was murdered.
Murdered
, Torsten. And they’re
in
on it.” She pointed her finger at me,
Gaven, all of us.
“It’s moot now,” said the wizard named Torsten. “The
Dioscuri will take Selwyn to Prague, if that is where they’re headed. The
Master House will deal with him. It’s finished. Pendderwenn is dead.”
“Oh, come now, you can’t really believe that. He must have
been working with them. Selwyn must have been working with the Dioscuri,” said
Mariska Coven. “There is an insidious plot to destabilize everything for which
we have been working so long. There is Dark Wicca afoot. Where is my Initiate?
We’re going. Come, Badgley.”
Mariska left the place, her feet flying over the sandpit. I
saw Badgley leaving with her, for which I sympathized.
I looked at Lia who was coming out of her funk; it was clear
to me we had a lot to talk about. She was being supported by Gaven, who picked
her up, carrying her out of the sandpit. Where Il Gatto went, the werewolves
followed. They pushed their way through the Gathering, daring anyone to
challenge them. No one did. With Selwyn gone, the remaining Wiccans dispersed,
and I was left staring at Fanishwar Harcort, who, of all of them, had always
impressed me the most with her ability to keep her head about her. She held her
Wiccan W up to mine, as I returned the gesture. And then I met with Ballard’s
stare....
This was going to be difficult.
* * *
“
I was supposed to protect
you,” he said.
“Well, you’re talking to me again,” I said. “That’s
something.” I didn’t know if I should be hard on him, or what. “Oh, come on,
let’s go.” Some of the other Wiccans were staring at us. I was tired of being
sociable.
Yeah, that’s right. I’m with
the werewolves. So what of it.
They could all bite me.
But he didn’t move. Instead, Ballard got down onto one knee,
and he said, so that everyone could hear, “I’m with you, Halsey Rookmaaker. I
won’t ever fail you again. I’m serious.”
“Get up, stupid. And don’t ever call me that again,” I said.
But I was relieved. With Ballard back, I could figure out anything. Including
how to get to Selwyn.
Ballard got up. “Are we good?” he said.
“Don’t you know I think you hang the moon?” I said. I looked
at him, exasperatedly.
“I howl at the moon,” he said. But he smiled, nonetheless.
Together we left the sandpit.
There were still some things to do. Namely, burying Julius
Pendderwenn. The Wiccans had had a point. Something with claws had gotten to
Julius Pendderwenn. Naturally, the suspicion fell on us, the werewolves. I
included myself among that group. But an entire race of werewolves could not be
condemned for one man’s death, could they? The Heads of Houses had certainly
gone off as quickly as they could. But something interesting had happened on
the last day of the Gathering. The Initiates had come up to me, one by one. Lia
was still recuperating at her home, so she missed out. Whatever the Dioscuri
had done to her, she was getting over it. Ballard had said that Volt and Pouch
had milked their injuries for all they were worth, but, essentially, the two of
them were okay, and I was glad to hear it. They were getting ready to go back
to school. I said goodbye to the Initiates on Lia’s behalf. “We liked meeting
her––
and you
,” they said
to me. I returned the compliment. These were my contemporaries, my Wiccan
coevals. “We’ll meet again,” I said.
“I’m sure of it,” they said.
They were off––to be Initiated––and
to learn––whatnot. But I had other plans. Growing in me was the
sense of what I must do.
Finally, everything was ended, and the Werewolves and I
closed shop. The Gathering was brought to an end. There would not be another
one for twenty-five years, at which point I would be forty-two, and Lennox, if
he was still alive, would still be the same age. I felt him out there, wherever
he was, and Marek, too; but it was Selwyn I was most worried about. I would not
allow him to be kept by those evil monsters,
wherever
they were.
So, one night, just before the other werewolves and I were
set to bury Julius Pendderwenn, I took Ballard aside. They had made me a member
of the Pack, the werewolves, indoctrinating me into their family; in a sense,
we
did
get two Initiates. Lia and I.
Even though I was House Rookmaaker, I would still always think of them as
mia famiglia
, my family. I had not told
them yet about House Rookmaaker. I figured I’d keep it a secret for a bit.
Anyway, I could just imagine Lia’s response: “I’m not taking your last name,
Halsey, I’m House Gaven,” she would say. They were due to be married soon. And
then Lia and Gaven would be off, to Tuscany and elsewhere, for their honeymoon.
Lia was going to be a January bride–– “At the New Year,” she said
to me. Which just left Ballard and me.
I pulled him to the side of the road, on Via Appia Antica,
which was where the werewolves buried their dead. As was their custom, the
werewolves were sending Julius Pendderwenn off in style. “After all, he was
from Rome,” said Gaven.
And from my
parents’ old House.
He had wanted me as his Initiate, Pendderwenn. Even
though the thought did not appeal to me, didn’t mean what had happened to Pendderwenn
should have. It was imperative Ballard know that it hadn’t been Selwyn who had
done it.
“Halsey,” he said. “Selwyn was in such a hurry he wasn’t
able to sneak past us; he’s sly, but we managed to track him down––
But then the Wiccans spotted him, and it was anarchy. They seemed to think he
had done it, killed Pendderwenn, especially after the outburst at your
Wiccaning, where he had yelled at Pendderwenn, you remember? They had a past.
Naturally, Selwyn took the blame. He was the perfect fall guy.”
“But he didn’t do it, Ballard,” I said.
“I know he didn’t,” Ballard said. “Like I said, Selwyn told
us. We have ways of communicating that pretty much negate people lying to us.
Selwyn couldn’t have fibbed. But by the time he told us about Lia, it was too late.
We were besieged. Selwyn managed to get away. But then you saw what happened.
Or did you?” He looked at me skeptically. “You looked pretty out of it. Those
things didn’t
hurt you
, did they?
Because, if they did...” said Ballard.
The werewolves were gathering to farewell the departed. The
cypress trees stood like silent sentinels, high above us. Torchlights whipped
like living flames in the cold night air. They were being held by some of the
werewolves, as a sign of respect for Julius Pendderwenn.
Words were said and the casket covered over. Pendderwenn’s
mound joined countless others. I said some kind words silently to myself, but
they didn’t feel right.
Gaven, however, smiled, and said, “Julius’s fate shall be an
interesting one, wherever he is. Come now. I’m famished, and my soon-to-be
bride is cooking for us.”
There was a gigantic whoop, and I departed with the rest of
them.
Lia in the lead.
Rome was shining in the distance, when we came to our
motorcycles. I started my Gambalunga, and Ballard said, “I told Gaven about
what I said to you. About me being your protector or whatever. And he told me,
no, he ordered me, to follow that instinct. So, I guess that means you’re stuck
with me.”
Ballard smiled at me––and it was that old
Ballard smile. The one the two of us shared, that was ours alone.
“I like knowing that you’re there to protect me,” I said.
“It makes me feel special, Ballard, and like we can overcome, well, anything.
So I guess I say:
so be it
.”
The other werewolves revved their engines, and I put my
helmet on. Gaven and Lia were riding once more, in tandem, at the head of the
Pack. The world seemed right again.
Ballard picked his feet up, and we headed over the
countryside, following the well-worn path, which took us back to Rome.
I weaved absentmindedly through the other riders, coming,
finally, to a position side by side with Lia and Gaven. They nodded at me. And
then I opened her up and raced ahead to meet my destiny.
# # #
Adept
(The Wiccan Diaries, Volume 3)
* * *
Chapter 10 – The Fifth
of Fourth
The moonlit lane crackled with the footsteps of the grave
makers as they trundled their barrows upon the cobblestones leading to the
quiet site. It was that half-light, somewhere between dreams and waking, in
which they toiled with their backs. These two were in an unusually somber mood.
Men accustomed to the sight of death were, nevertheless,
mere traffickers in bodies. The mysteries of the grave were not their business,
even if they lived with it, in dirt under their fingernails, the earthy, raw
odor pervading their very clothes. Not to mention the unusual circumstances.
Philosophically, they were being paid. And well. Money for
silence, for questions unasked; money for their obliviousness, and guarantees to
keep the secrets of the tomb. An old business, timeless as the stars that
watched over them.
Yet not without its little surprises.
As anyone who ever took money to perform a hushed deed knew,
the covenant was sealed––in blood, or out of it....
Warily, they crested a small hill, overlooking the ancient
relics: moss-grown crypts with burnished plaques, or else nondescript plots,
with headstones in various sizes and degrees of ornamentation. It was endlessly
unnerving despite years of experience, skulking through the graveyard at this
late hour, two shapes hunched with their profession, a motley pair of mobile
silhouettes where everything else was still, except the slow roll of shadows as
night shifted overhead.
They needed to be quick. They weren’t actually supposed to
be here, for a very simple reason. Death had been lax of late. The exception
obviously stowed in a burlap sack the leader pushed forward in his handcart.
He stopped. “Do you hear something?” he asked.
“Quiet as the tomb,” replied his cohort half-mockingly. They
were in a hurry, and he didn’t have time for his friend’s misgivings. He
already had enough himself to last a lifetime.
“Not the tomb,” said the other.
“Him.”
He pointed to the outline of a figure bundled uncomfortably
in a fetal position, its limbs overhanging the metal rim of the wheelbarrow.
The man behind sighed melodramatically, lifting his eyes up
to the heavens, before shaking his head. He had a pair of spades over his
shoulder he put down forcefully, striding from behind the leader to look at
their charge.
“I don’t see anything wrong with him, other than the fact
he’s dead.”
“Or she,” said the Leader. “After all, it could be a girl.”
“It could be. Or it could be nothing. Actually it
is
nothing. Not anymore. Now can we get
on? The last thing we need is to be taken for a pair of grave robbers, by some
night watchman.” Then he looked appraisingly at the body. “Very tall for a
girl. What do you say we take a peek?”
“I don’t like it André. And I thought I heard something.”
“What,” said André, “a moan? Give me a––”
“There! You heard it again!”
André dropped down to his knees. He had heard it. Barely
perceptible at first, but there, like a groan, but soft, muffled––like
a whispering voice, almost. The body remained immobile.
“You
felt
it, it
was stiff as a board,” hissed the man called André, the first inkling all was
not right. “Bodies don’t just reanimate, even if they
are––well––you know––” He couldn’t bring himself
to say the word
magical
.
The other man, whose name was Thierry, agreed, nodding
silently at first, before joining André with his nose pressed nearly to the
outline of the head. “I have heard it said that they are
marked
, sometimes,” he said. “And that this
mark
can do special things.” They stood like that for some time,
hunched, not daring to move. Nearly fifteen minutes had elapsed before either
of them spoke. It was Thierry who broke the silence.
“Where did you say this body came from again?” He asked. The
same muddled thoughts seemed to be going through both men’s minds. What to do
if their worst fears were true, if they had been charged with the burial of a
living corpse...?
André said, “I didn’t, and neither did you, remember? We’re
not supposed to be here.”
“Because it could be
him
,”
said Thierry, somewhat shakily.
“Who?”
“You know, the one who’s been in the news––Peter
Panico.”
“I don’t buy it. And I don’t think this could be him.”
“Why not?”
“For one thing,” said André, “you’re either one or the
other, but not both.”
“There’s an easy way to check that,” said Thierry, but fell
silent at the look from his comrade.
“For another, those were the work of a monster not easily
quelled, I don’t think...”
“Look at the size of him, André. They say the life of one is
forfeit upon entering this place. Besides, there are
claw marks
. If we could just check––”
“No.”
André was adamant.
Leaving the rest of this argument unspoken, they moved on,
the plan resolved, agreed upon without words. They would dig. Or, rather,
re
-dig. The essence of the job was in
secrecy. No evidence, imprints or otherwise, could be left behind.
If I am right
, thought Thierry,
time will tell. No more murders.
It was an encouraging thought.
It was almost like something was going on. Their business
had never been this busy––nor André so on edge.
It was arduous going, at first, the soil hard with the
winter frost. The age of the grave didn’t help matters. Soon they would be rid
of the stranger.
Least he’d have company
,
they thought. He was too big to be a she. Thierry recognized that now. Did they
even come in females? He reckoned they must have.
This seemed to amuse him. Anything to deflect from the
desecration. Still, André was uneasy, and he couldn’t help thinking Thierry had
a point. It
would
be wise to see who
they were burying––if just for piece of mind; but the price said
otherwise. They had mind readers, after all. The Lenoir would know....
One mistake was all it took to get killed––and,
strange though it may have sounded, André valued his reputation. He wouldn’t
let Thierry lead them astray with their temptations.
It was nearing 4 a.m., the sun would be up in a few hours,
when they found what they were looking for. Throwing their shovels on top of
the precarious mound, they popped quickly back down––thinking all
the while:
hurry, hurry
––to
brush back the dirt from the cheap pine lid of the coffin, which had lain
undisturbed for nearly two decades. Amazing how it had survived
intact
all this time.
“We could forgo this bit,” said Thierry, who had suddenly
realized the time. They had wasted too much of it with their consciences.
André removed his pry bar in response. So be it, thought
Thierry, taking it from him, not relishing the sight that was about to greet
them.
Thierry worked deftly, tearing at the wood. It gave in
splinters and breaks. At his motion, André hopped dutifully from the grave.
Thierry pried with all his might. Nails jarred from wood, reverberating in the
freshly dug hole. And he bent it back, going so far as to step upon the occupant
within. He felt the lace of her gown underfoot. Now if somebody checked, there
would be
two
corpses––the
woman, and the stranger––buried here.
“How much time do we have?” he asked. They were almost done.
André looked uncomfortably at the approaching dawn. A life
of servitude had bestowed in him an accuracy of measures.
“Just enough to throw the dirt back on, I’d say, if we want
to sneak out before the light.”
He did not like to think what would happen if they got
caught. Apart from trespassing, and other illegal acts, the identity of their
man should be known by no one. That was the agreement. They were referred by
certain unscrupulous clients who did not forgive mistakes easily; all other
considerations were insignificant compared to what would happen if they failed.
“No! How much time do we have to do the
rites
?” Thierry hissed.
Shaken, it was a moment before André could respond. “Well?”
said the latter.
He listened fretfully to Thierry wheezing below him. Slowly
the words of their client came back to André. He shuddered. There had been
something depraved in that figure, unnatural, as though he had done terrible
things, and would do them again. “I don’t know,” he said at last.
Thierry stamped his foot; unwise, given what he was standing
on. They heard bone crack. “Careful,” said André. He heard his own everlasting
doom there. Again, he crept to the body in the burlap sack.
He would have to touch it, real soon. Then he’d know. It
would be hard, awkward; settled in its discomfiture the way old compost lay,
sickly to the touch.
Either that, or
spring
at them!
Nothing would shock him now.
It all went back to the client. Night stretched into night,
in his memories of their meeting, as though daylight would never come again. An
illicit one-time act––that was the way André liked to think of it;
but this time was somehow different, more unsettling.
André had never murdered anyone. He didn’t think he could.
But he knew what murder felt like. And he had never felt this before.
He looked at Thierry, who seemed preternaturally paused, as
if he, too, were undergoing the same set of moralistic crises, heaped one atop
the next.
“Do you get the feeling,” he said, “like we shouldn’t be
doing this?”
Thierry grunted, clearly troubled.
“Say we don’t,” said André, “say we take this guy, we...”
“He’s dead,” said Thierry. “If we heard anything, it was his
ghost talking.” He was irritated by the hesitancy he perceived in André’s
voice. “Let’s get this over with.”
Then he looked up. André looked frightened. A fear was on
his face that could not be
tossed
aside, or in a pit and covered over with what remained of the night.
“I don’t want to do this,” André said.
André had a plan. They would cover over the coffin, lid and
earth, making it look to unsuspecting eyes like nothing had happened there.
Suspecting ones were another matter.
Implausible though it seemed, André wasn’t certain, whether
in a day or in a year, somebody would be sent, to check up on the contents of
the grave, to see if the contract had indeed been fulfilled. But there was
nothing else for it. With doubt indecision had been born.
Probably he was being paranoid, but it was time to take
action. What could this man have done, he wondered, to warrant––
Quickly, and with aching backs, they began forcing the dirt
back from where it had come. Within minutes they had finished, both men doing
their best to make the site look undisturbed. It was biting cold and all about
them remnants of dying grass rose in feeble patches.
The moon had gone, as they trundled back the way they’d come,
replaced by the first rays of wintry sunlight, their burden still in their
possession. It was late December––freezing in Paris. A sheet of ice
half a foot thick glazed over the Seine. It was so cold, Thierry noticed his
breath fog before his eyes. His breathing was labored, both with trundling
their cargo––if anything it had
kept
growing in size; it was very heavy now––and the new exertion of his
and André’s choice. Something had stopped their hands on the brink of
completing their mission (which had never happened before)! And now they were
stuck with––
whatever
it
was.
“Are you thinking what I am?” he said.
André nodded. “The old man will know what to do,” he said.
“They say he studies. Maybe he will take it off our hands.”
“Not that,” said Thierry, who stopped short to rest against
a small aspen tree. “First we must know
what
we are taking him.”
It was the thieves’ code, both men knew it. Given where the
body came from, there could potentially be a considerable amount of heat upon
it: interest from unlooked-for foes. The only kinds of bodies they buried were
the ones nobody wanted found. Which begged the question: What if it were?
Tales get around. Pretty soon you pay for
your kindnesses
, they thought. They didn’t want to bring the old man a
looked-for body.
But André had enough. He stabbed first one spade into the
ground, then the next. It was fantastically quiet out. “Are you saying that you
think we should
check
this fellow?”
he said. “We can’t keep dithering, Thierry.”
“Stolen radios make bad pawns,” said Thierry
philosophically.
“Your knife please,” said André. “Hurry! I don’t want to be
known as the ditchdigger of Père Lachaise. We’ll see what this fellow knows or
if he’s as mundane as I find you.”
Thierry handed André a small butterfly knife. It whicked
open in André’s hand.
He started at the neckline, piercing the burlap with the
point of the blade, working his way up to expose the chin. There was no pulse.
If experience had taught both men one thing, it was how to
recognize Death. For all intents and purposes, the body before them
was
dead.
Soon, the head was exposed. André pulled the hood back
crumpling it behind as a makeshift pillow, revealing the face.
The features were striking. This person, whoever he was,
would move through society extraordinarily easily, both in the supernatural
world, with all its variation, and in the mortal world. It was strange how
there was a definition between the two, almost
defined
by death. Fringe though they may have been, even Thierry
and André could sense that supernaturals sometimes died. Something was coming.
If they could’ve guessed,
hardship
.
For them and everyone else.
A myriad of far-fetched ideas paraded in front of both men’s
minds, each more outlandish than the last, until they were consumed by choices,
wondering, Which option shall we take? First things first, however: they would
need to get a look at the Mark; concealed, for now, but not forever. “We need
to get a look at this fellow––before we bring him to that old bone
conjurer,” said Thierry shrewdly.