Neophyte / Adept (62 page)

“So the Triple Goddess is...”

“The Triple Goddess is the Wiccan super-chick with the power
to walk the Dark Path and unite magic,” said Sándor. “It’s a prophecy, you see,
of someone like yourself, who will
undo
what was done
.... The Triple Goddess herself!”

But
what
was done,
I thought, and was that why the Dark Lord was after me? Was I the Triple
Goddess? This super-chick? Of all the Initiates, it was
me
, according to the twins.
I
was the one who showed the most
spirit
.
Whatever that meant.
Now she may walk the
Dark Path, and find out the secret the Dark Order has been waiting centuries to
possess...?

I thanked the S’s, but really I had more problems than
solutions. I still needed to discover how far Vittoria had progressed in
raising the dead?

When I went upstairs, I dug into the Everything book, and
began familiarizing myself with necromancy. The trouble was, it was almost
impossible to understand. I had never seen more tricky magic.

Objects, shapes,
runes.... Circles––
according to the book
––protected that which was within... demons entered
physical world.... Payment for summoning flesh... certain objects... specific
instructions... time, location... method of gathering items... The widespread
belief dogs could see the dead....

Hold on. It got me to thinking of the grey wolf, and if it was
a Lare––
Shoot, I almost had
it.

Wait a minute... Hold on, I thought.

According to the book, dogs guarded the gates of Hell,
right? Cerberus, the three-headed Greek dog....

I almost had it again.

What was my subconscious trying to tell me?
Dogs accompanied the Goddess––
check
––who guarded the
Gates––
check. Dogs were all mixed in with death. Too bad
Ballard wasn’t here, I thought.

But, wait a sec; I had read something somewhere before. What
was it?

I flipped to the benandanti section of the Everything book,
Those Who Do Good.

ACCORDING TO LEGEND, THE BENANDANTI DESCENDED DOWN INTO HELL
TO DO BATTLE WITH THE WARLOCKES [SIC], ACCOMPANIED BY
THE GODDESS
, WHO WOULD
HUNT
LOST SOULS
.

Hunt lost souls. What did that mean? I flipped shut the book
and then opened it again and reread it. It was on the tip of... on
the––hold on.

I slammed shut the book and began pacing––I had
a six-pack of Succo del Gatto and would stay the night, if need be.

By Goddess did whoever wrote the book mean the Triple
Goddess? What did hunting lost souls entail? I had heard of the Land of the
Dead, or Hades, as it was known, but did it really exist? And then it clicked.

Where was it? Where was it? I thought. I had read about it
before. I dug through months of scattered newspapers on the floor, but it
wasn’t there.
It wouldn’t be! It couldn’t
be!
I hadn’t taken out the newspaper subscriptions yet, had I?
That
article would be in my desk
drawer...

I went over to the desk and fetched it out and lo and behold
it was there, the Skarborough article I’d read nearly six months before.

IMMOLATION RESPONSIBLE FOR GRAVE SCENE INSIDE PÈRE
LACHAISE

PARIS––For generations, Paris youth have
partied openly at the gravesites of some of History’s most famous dead people.
Lighting candles, drinking beer. An activity which has been called into
question, of late, following the discovery, over night, of two bodies
authorities say spontaneously combusted.
Paraphernalia
found near the corpses suggests they were up to no good.

According to one investigator, who spoke on condition
of anonymity, “as this is still an open case,” he said, “and I don’t want this
psychopath doubling back on me,” there was another set of footprints there.

According to the source, they’re looking for somebody
who may be on a lunar schedule. “A lone wolf. A rogue, as they’re referred,
with abnormally-shaped feet. He left
paw
prints
behind.”

This rogue is considered armed and considerably
dangerous. “How else did he fry those two individuals?”

Europol has posted a red notice along with a
descriptor index of the subject. Be on the lookout for anyone with signs of
hypertrichosis: a hairy disorder which makes you break out in fur, and perhaps,
dog feet.

As is typical with arsonists, they always come back.

Dog feet
, I
thought. It was a story about Rayven.
The
story.

I paced––thinking.

Okay. I spiritwalked
or whatever. I was out-of-body. It wasn’t the first time. For some reason, I
Saw
that night. Maybe Rayven wanted me to
see him come back. It wouldn’t be the first time he showed me something secret.
What do we know about Rayven, Halsey? Think. He’s a Grigori, a Watchtower, a
lone wolf. He immolated those two guys in the graveyard.

I hadn’t thought about the gravediggers in months. But then
it occurred to me:
Skarborough wasn’t
there–– I was....

I was the only person alive who knew what had happened in
the graveyard. I could recall it with perfect clarity. But what did happen? I
had never fully analyzed it before.

“Remembr,” I said.

I played the event back in my head. It was like it was being
shadow-cast across the inside of my skull. There had been two gravediggers.
Check. Thierry and André. They had been burying somebody. Rayven. But he had
gotten away. He had been
raised
. They
had been sure Rayven was dead. Had he been brought back to life, there and
then?

Wait a sec.

Rayven was dead––he was dead when they started
burying him; but then he had been raised. Someone had raised him. The
gravediggers had until first light to do the Last Rites,
the Last Rites
. What were those?

I flipped through the Everything book to Dark Magic, but it
didn’t have it. Maybe some forms of magic you had to
practice
to become adept at. Perhaps they couldn’t be written down,
those spells; yet the Voettfangs had assured me, this was
the
book; if a spell didn’t exist in here, it didn’t exist at all.
But necromancy
did
exist. It was some
of the most complex magic imaginable. The
covenants
....
I thought. Maybe there was one that prevented arcane knowledge from being
passed down, forbidden knowledge.
401.
Access denied.
The Last War had been fought, after all, to destroy Dark
Magic.

Those books Vittoria ordered were on the
banned
list of books, right?
You’re doing it again, Halsey. Making lots
of yourself. Find the S Bros. Talk to them.

After all, if anyone would know about the Last Rites, it
would be them.

Feeling like the Everything book should be retitled the Some
Stuff book, I went to seek out the twins. They were downstairs, in their shop.
I took the newspaper clipping with me.

Was Rayven close by? My mark was glowing faintly. He
couldn’t get through Coven City, could he? Not without raising the alarm.
Still, why was my mark glowing? Perhaps it had something to do with all the
supernatural energy currently headquartered in Rome; initiates were coming in.
Plus, the inspector was here. What if he finds something? It was his job to dig
into my parents’ house, to make sure everything was copacetic. What if it’s
not? If his virtue is
insight
....
What if the inspector finds something
compromising
?

S Bros, S Bros,

Answer the door before my mind explodes.

They came downstairs, rubbing sleep from their eyes, and let
me into their shop; I bounded in. I couldn’t help it; even if I was unwelcome,
the gnomes of my invention had come out to play. Sándor was the first to finish
the article and say So what? Perhaps if I helped him along, I thought. I’d
never done the Remember Spell on another human being before. How tough could it
be?

Their eyes crisscrossed and Rayven rose up in the graveyard;
the fire spell erupted, killing the two gravediggers... We were back, once
more, on Via dei Condotti, by the time the memory faded. Sándor snapped his
fingers, out of breath. “I know that,” he said. Both twins read through the
article once more.

“So you know what it means?” I said.

Sándor nodded.
“Immolate.
To mactate someone. Immolation. It’s a ritual sacrifice. You use
fire
, don’t you see?
Stormr hamrinum.
It’s the fire spell,
right?”

“So?” I said.

“So, Rayven’s a demon, Halsey.
Paraphernalia––it all makes sense!
How else do you
bring someone back, in what other form? Unless they’re a zombie, or some other
ill-shaped entity. You use
objects
.”

“How about a vampire?” said Septimus.

“Not the same thing,” said Sándor.
“Here––look––read the article again. So far as I know,
no one
has managed to conquer death, to
bring someone back. Not in the whole history of magic. At least not
permanently. And there have been a lot of necromancers who’ve
tried––some of whom were quite skilled. Which is kind of the point.
If the Dark Order has somehow managed to raise the dead.... See, the Wiccan
Rede is explicit,” said Sándor. “Wrongdoing will be visited upon the wrongdoer
elevenfold. Therefore:
harm none
.
Yet, to raise the dead, to bring someone
Back
,
you must first make a flesh offering, to sacrifice by fire; in other words,
kill someone. To immolate them.
Sacrifice
is
in
the definition of immolation.”

“So the Rede...” I said.

“You are going against it,” said Sándor. “You are bringing
upon yourself bad, bad karma. What is eleven times worse than
murder––? Anyway, the most that someone could raise would be a
demon. Actually, it’s more like they’re summoned; the conjurer works his spell,
encircled and protected, by magic. If done right the demon cannot get to him.
But it can strike others. Its master tells it what to do. That’s what makes it
such a formidable being; if summoned properly, the demon, or shade, cannot go
against its master’s wish. What does whoever conjured it want, anyway?”

“Me,” I said. “He wants to kill me.”
Lenoir
, I thought.

Rayven had tried to get to me. In Stromovka, when we were
alone, Rayven dealt with Ballard, then turned his attention to me. The vargr
noctum spell.
Kill it.
What it?

It would have enveloped me, had it not gone off course; if
not for the benandanti, Rayven would have succeeded in killing me; he was
certainly annoyingly persistent. But, did that mean what I thought it did? That
I had a––a something inside of me? A limbo-spirit or whatever.
Vargr noctum was used to cut out the therian.

If Rayven was a demon, how did I kill him?

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” said Sándor. “Something like he is
cannot be attacked and killed. Haven’t you heard anything we’ve said?”

“Can’t he?” I said.

“For one thing, he’s already dead,” said Sándor. “For
another, only the wonderworker who conjured Rayven can send him back to the
everlasting, to the spirit world from which he came. He was artificially
ripped, remember? The necromancer––”

“Lenoir. Rayven was raised by Lenoir,” I said.

“Whoever,” said Sándor. “He has complete control, now,
Halsey. Rayven must do what, all right––
Lenoir
––tells him to do. And if that’s coming after
you––”

“Ideage. Major ideage,” said Septimus, holding up his hand.

Sándor gave way to the look of epiphany on his brother’s
face.

“Rayven’s after her, right,
but is he
?” he said. “Stay with me, here; and make a pot of tea. Go
back to what the two gravediggers said at the end, because that’s what Rayven
has to do. Perhaps if we deconstruct it, we can figure out his master’s
intentions.”

Sándor put on a pot, and I thought back to the dream; the
words may as well have been written in stone, graven on the insides of my
eyelids.

“The war is starting.
Battle lines will be drawn. She and the vampire are headed towards Prague. Find
the other one and kill him. Do not let
it
survive.”
But, so what? I thought.

But Septimus said, “Don’t you
see
? The Lare you saw, Halsey, in the Stromovka, the grey wolf, if
it
was
interested in you, why hasn’t
it come back yet? Did it lose its way, or is it after someone else?”

“Hold on...
no...”
I said.

“Oh yes,” said Septimus.

“You think the Lare, that is the grey wolf, is
Rayven’s
Lare; that somehow it’s trying
to reconnect with him?” I said.

“Rayven is tethered precariously to this existence; the only
thing that can knock him out, is his spirit animal,” said Sándor.

“It would try to protect him,” said Septimus. “It would try
also to save his
soul
. That’s what
the gravediggers were doing when they had Rayven and were trying to perform the
Last Rites. But he murdered them.
We
tried to save you
, they said. Remember?”

And when Rayven had cornered me for a second time, I
thought, in the Stromovka, and said
Mine
at last
, That’s what he was after––me. But he had been afraid
of the Lare; it showed its fangs to him and would have attacked Rayven, if
Rayven hadn’t skedaddled. The Grey Wolf was tracking me,
because
Rayven was tracking me. It all made sense. The Grey Wolf
was Rayven’s Lare. Do not let
it
survive.

“Which just goes to show,” said Septimus, “how unnatural the
raising of the dead truly is. Lenoir would
want
his servant not to have to worry about the Lare or the Last Rites, to keep him
tethered––
useable
.”