The Soul Consortium (11 page)

There is no furniture, only hideous sculptures fashioned from a mottled substance that looks like it has been tortured into distorted forms of the human body. Enlarged contortions, twisted mannequins with a metallic sheen that might be blood in a different light. Some of their faces have been crafted with such attention to detail that I can almost see the terror in their eyes. Limbs are perverted by impossible knots, extended to disproportionate lengths with joints and sinew skewed and swollen like reflections in a warped mirror.

The room seems colder now that I have seen these horrors. And I am sure they are watching me.

Keitus stands in an open doorway on the other side of the room. “Pay no attention to my eccentricities.”

“Is this your … art?”

“A gallery of sorts. It does not appeal to many, but one must find expression for the workings of one’s heart, yes?”

I glance at the sculptures, preferring even them to his bulging stare. I am sure there are people who can appreciate Mr. Vieta’s work—such delicate weavings in the textures and harmonious curves in their posture—but I cannot move myself to enjoy such a mockery of God’s creation. “Do you sell many of these … ?”

“Alas, no, but I have no concerns. I have no shortage of coin and these”—he motions a withered hand—”are merely a creative outlet born from a greater passion of mine. They are the residue of another purpose.”

“Another purpose?”

“Indeed, but you need not know of that. Come through. I have a little brandy to set you at ease, my dear.” Keitus disappears into another hallway beyond the door.

I weave my way between the effigies, fearing an unexpected touch or a sudden rush of cold breath from their gaping mouths as I pass, but I reach the other side with no incident and chide myself for thinking so darkly. With faltering breath, I follow Keitus Vieta into another room, trying to dismiss my expectations of seeing a bloody torture chamber through the next door, and finding, to my relief, a much more pleasant place.

At first glance the room appears normal—a long center table with ten walnut chairs surrounding it, burgundy walls, tall bookcases, a large fireplace, and an array of display cabinets. But still my senses sharpen with the promise of danger. The light is too dim; the air is stale and carrying the bitter stench of something like ammonia.

“Brandy.” Keitus sets a small glass on the table and pulls out a chair for me.

“Thank you.” And I sit down, still avoiding his gaze.

“At the door you expressed a wish for your mama to have a proper burial. Do you still wish this?”

“More than anything.” I force myself to look at him, praying my trepidation will fade, but it does not. “How much did you pay my sister for Mama … Mama’s body?”

“Twenty florin.”

I try not to let my disappointment show, but a twitch in his lip tells me he sees something in my expression. “Too much for you?”

“It may be difficult. I—”

He lifts a hand to silence me. “Perhaps an alternative payment can be made other than coinage.”

“I would gladly give you anything.”

Keitus smiles, and once more I am struck by how wrong this man feels. A sip of the brandy causes my stomach to lurch with sudden fright. How could I trust this man? Anything could be in that glass. But again I judge harshly for no other reason than unfounded fear.

“An object,” he says, moving closer. “It need not be valuable. I need something your mama used very soon before she passed on. A glass she drank from perhaps or a hairbrush used this morning.”

“Why?”

“I hoped for some item of her clothing to give me what I need, but all of it is too … weak. I need something stronger.”

“Stronger? I don’t understand.”

Keitus pulls out a chair next to mine, sits in it, and gazes at me a little too intently. “You recall your childhood?”

“Of course.”

“And did you ever play as a child?”

“I used to play with my brothers.”

“And what did you play?”

I close my eyes, almost ashamed at the memory. Ashamed yet aware that it was also the innocence of youth. “We used to play Pass the Plague.”

“I see.”

“Arrigo always won. We used to run through the streets and into the fields behind Baggio’s farm—Baggio always shouted at us on the way past, but he was too fat to chase us.” I pause, allowing a moment of sentimentality to soften my uneasiness.

“I loved to hide among the trees where they couldn’t find me, but there was an old oak tree Arrigo especially liked. It died years ago and the inside was hollow, so he would always hide inside it until I was caught.”

“How old were you?”

“Seven or eight, I think.”

“You didn’t play when you were nine?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Do you remember the last time you played that game?”

I think for a few seconds, sifting through snippets of memory—Fran on her back laughing loudly, Livio running from the woods screaming about a spider that had crawled into his hair, my grazed knee when I fell in the road. Fond memories and regretful memories mix in my mind, filling me with dreamy nostalgia. “No, I don’t think I can.”

“But there was, wasn’t there, Dominique?” His eyes bulge again. “One day you played that game for the very last time. You had no knowledge that it would be the final game, but it was.”

I take another sip of brandy. “I suppose so.”

“For all things there is a last time. To all things an end.”

I feel my pulse quicken. “Yes.”

“And between all things there is an exchange of power and will.” His words grow quieter and slower. “When the candle burns, it gives light. When the heart wills, the body acts. When the crow calls, the worm flees. With all things in this world there is cause and there is effect. But what if … the effect is denied? What if the exchange is broken?”

“I don’t understand.”

Keitus’s smile fades, and for the first time he blinks and looks away. “Powers are released, and unless they are harnessed, they flutter away. The powers will move, wander until dissolution.” His gnarled fingers claw the air. “Death is the greatest severance. There is so much power in the human will. So much power wasted, so many intentions left unfulfilled.”

“But when people die their souls go to be with the Lord or with Satan. Is that not the truth?”

“I am not speaking of the soul.”

“Then what?”

“When your mother died, the bond between cause and effect was broken. Those feelings and will of thought that were so strong in her mind retreated into personal objects she connected with immediately before her death. The last vessel she drank from, the last book she touched, the cloth she patted against her forehead for the last time—all become unwilling containers of an effect unfulfilled, a power harnessed for a short while.”

“You talk of unknown powers. Things that sound like witchcraft,” I say. “You are a witch!”

“No. Merely a science that has yet to be understood.”

I stand and grab the back of my chair, pushing it between us. “Get behind me, Satan. I’ll not listen to witchcraft.”

“Satan?” Keitus stands too, and though he is much shorter than me, I feel smaller than an insect when he looks at me. “If Satan were real he would surely cower if I called his name.”

Thinking only of escape, I spin around, set my sights on the open doorway behind me. I don’t know if Keitus is making a move to stop me, but I lunge forward and break into a run, fearing his yellow nails tearing at my back, imagining him exploding into a blood-eyed demon, devouring the room behind me, surging outward to fill the house like a poisonous cloud. A scream escapes me as I stagger through the door, catching my shoulder against the frame.

In my peripheral vision I see him still standing in the same place, watching me as I flee, with no obvious intention to stop me. Somewhere in a rational corner of my mind, I’m aware that he has done nothing to warrant my panic, but the dark, primitive part of my instincts justifies my terror as I stumble into one of his statues and scream again.

Flailing, clawing forward, I am almost at the next door that will take me to the exit hallway when my left hand momentarily connects with something hard and hot, the handle of Keitus Vieta’s cane. Lightning-blue sparks rip the air when it falls, and as I crash to the floor I hear the crack of wood against stone and see the cane spinning away from me. The jewel in its handle is shimmering, sending wave after wave of heat over my head. Several of the mannequins topple in the wake of the violence like mummified victims caught in a blast of volcanic fury. As pain burns through my palm, I look at my hand to see the branding of the artist’s jewel on my skin—a glistening circle where the flesh has been burnt away.

With nothing but the natural compulsion to survive driving me on, I crawl into the hallway, pull myself up against the final door, open it, and career into the empty street to land on my back.

My breathing, hoarse and desperate, almost drowns out new noises in my head—noises that sound like a jeering rabble crowding in from all sides. I stare up into the night sky faced with the fathomless heavens sprinkled with stars. God must be watching me. He knows I am here, knows I have resisted the dark, knows the terror that consumes my soul as I lie on the cold cobbles.

“Though I walk … through the shadow of the valley of death … I shall fear no evil, for thou art with me.” I close my eyes, trying to shut out the howling of my thoughts as a hundred confused voices fight to be heard. “Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.”

I scream as the image of Keitus Vieta’s cane, rippling with power, slams to the forefront of my mind. Eyes open to dismiss the power of that thought, I tilt my head forward and look at the doorway of the small man’s house. There he is, hunched and black, but he is not coming for me. Instead he is slowly closing the door. And as it clicks shut I cry out to God, begging for my salvation, pulling at my hair to silence the cacophony of voices.

One voice sounds above the rest, but it is not the answer of my Savior. “Witch!” says Mama. “I spit on the day my womb conceived you, and I wish a demon’s fate on your soul. You, of all my children, are my biggest disappointment and in no small way.”

I
t took the entire night to reclaim my composure, but whether my sanity has been regained, I cannot say. By the grace of God, I have seen the sunrise through the window of my empty house and have not been driven from my faith. The Lord rescued me from the street, and through my dazed wanderings back to my door, He protected me from harm. The riots did not meet me again, nor did Keitus Vieta come to find me as I feared he might.

The horror of my escape has lessened, and although I struggle to recall the exact events, the raw and weeping circle on the palm of my hand serves as a painful reminder that it was no delusion. And the voices have diminished too. That or I have already learned how to filter them from my conscious thoughts.

But you will never silence
me,
Dominique.

I’ll not listen to Mama’s voice. God will restore me, I know. But until He does, I must resist the trickery of the devil. It cannot be Mama who haunts my thoughts—she sits at the feet of Jesus now.

Jesus? You don’t know Him, and He doesn’t know you. When it’s your turn to die, you’ll be thrown to your father the devil and burn in his lake of fire.

“No! Mama, please don’t say such things. I loved you.”

But I never loved you. You were always a millstone about my neck—the daughter who brought shame to our household; the daughter who cherished sinful thoughts; the daughter who envied her sister; the daughter who lusted after her own brothers.

“None of that is true. Get
behind
me, Satan!”

How dare you call me that.

“I’m so sorry, Mama … I’m so sorry.”

All I can do is weep. Let the devil have his way with me for now. I must endure my suffering until restoration comes, however long that may take. How I wish Enrique had come home to comfort me. I keep hoping I will see his familiar swagger along the street, but in my heart I know it will be weeks until my fiancé returns.

I move away from the window, slump down at the table, and rest my cheek against the wood. The cool surface is a balm to my thumping head, but I know the relief will not last long. Whether it is the prolonged sobbing that brought on this ache or the accident in the artist’s house, I have no clue, but I suspect it will grow worse if I do not eat or drink something soon.

With my arms stretched out across the table, I allow my tears to soak into the aged timber and try to ignore the numbing cold air. The flames in the fireplace have long been snuffed out, and I don’t have the inclination to light it again; somehow it would not seem right for the house to feel warm when the atmosphere has become so deathly. I take a deep, shuddering breath, stifle the next wave of tears, and close my eyes. Perhaps sleep, if it finds me, will allow me some peace.

A bold knock on the door startles me. My eyes open, but I do not move. Another knock and still I do not stir.

Idle bitch! Answer it! Answer it!
Mama’s voice screams.

“Leave me alone!”

“Dom? Are you all right? Open the door. It’s Livio.”

I push myself upright, gather my thoughts. “Livio?”

“Yes. Open the door. Are you still moping over Mama?”

I go to the door and open it.

Wrapped in his long winter coat and scarf, my brother barges past me, bringing a cold gale into the house with him. Hugging his arms around himself, he glances about the kitchen, then his gaze settles on the fireplace. “What’s this? No fire? Why are you sitting in such a chill?”

“I—”

“Never mind. Get some coals on, and put some broth on too. I’m ravenous and frozen to the marrow.” Livio sits on a stool at the table, waving a hand in the air and looking out the window. “I find it almost impossible to believe that we could be assaulted by such foul weather. It’s a wonder that so many people went out in the snow to start rioting, don’t you think?”

And now he looks at me, eyebrows raised, expecting an answer. It is good to hear his voice and to see his face. Livio, with his no-nonsense attitude, has always been a rock for me to cling to in times of trouble, although sometimes, like now, I fear he would rather shrug me off than offer comfort. I suppose it is to my benefit that he acts this way, and naturally, he is a busy man with many appointments to keep, so he cannot afford to spend time on matters of little importance.