Evil?
He found himself staring at her forehead and thinking of what had materialized in this room the other night. Somehow he'd managed to not really consider the implications of these things. He'd conducted himself as if the things that had happened in here were a momentary delusion, a dream. Maybe, he was willing to concede, a nightmare.
But evil?
He stood before the altar with his head bowed, broken athame in his left hand, and prayed for strength.
Help me, Elias, he thought. But he could find no sense of the old man whose voice had filled his ears several minutes ago. He could feel no visiting presence. He tried not to feed his disappointment.
Instead, he imagined a hole opening in his crown, imagined cosmic power like a warm liquid heavy and thick as mercury pouring into him. When it filled him to brimming, when he could literally feel it tingling through his veins and nerves, he turned and raised the dagger over his head. Lenore's eyes flickered with candlelight; the glow overwhelmed her eyes and ran down over her cheeks like melting wax. Tears. The spirits around her must have begun to loosen their grip.
I won't have to call the hospital, he thought.
The mandala in the center of her brow began to glow.
He lowered the athame, aiming it right at her head, right at the throbbing emblem.
"All you uninvited, now begone!" he cried. With his words, he imagined a jet of pure power coursing down his arms and out the blade. He willed it to shatter in the air against the circular scar. He imagined the blast burning all impurities from her aura, from the room, from Cinderton—from the Earth itself. And for that single instant, he couldn't help but think of the thing he fought as evil. In his viscera, drawing on his animal power, he needed to believe in evil for a moment, if only to strengthen his faith in his own goodness, and the necessity for what he was doing.
Carefully he visualized her sickness being blasted into countless tiny disintegrating pieces that flickered and vanished out among the far reaches of the universe.
He lowered the knife, taking a deep breath.
Lenore's eyes were closed. She looked peaceful, at ease.
He knelt down before Lenore and kissed her on the forehead, as if making peace with the sigil emblazoned there.
"Lenore?" he said.
She opened her eyes, looking very distant, blinking around as if to see where she was. His heart leapt.
"How do you feel, hon? Everything's all right."
She smiled faintly and reached out to him. He started to put his arms around her—but that wasn't what she wanted. She plucked the dagger from his fingers before he knew what she was up to, then scurried back and knelt with her back to the door.
"Lenore," he said cautiously. "What are you doing? Put that down, okay?"
She put the athame to her throat, punched the broken tip through the thin skin a fraction of an inch, and held the blade there while little beads of blood and then a steady stream dripped down her neck.
Time seemed to slow for Michael. "Stop it! Lenore!"
He couldn't tear his eyes from the blade, the blood, until he noticed a gentle motion in the air above her. Something stirring, stroking the atmosphere. It was so faint that he wouldn't have recognized it if he hadn't seen it once before, two nights ago. It was smaller now, hugging close to Lenore, its thin arms like spikes radiating from her hair, seen shimmeringly like the halo of a Byzantine saint—but blackly luminous, rather than gold.
Not all of the spikes fanned outward, though. Most of them now curved down and fed directly into her skull. It was in that moment, seeing the thing clearly, he acknowledged once and for all that the problem was not with drugs. It had not involved drugs for a while. He would have preferred drugs, in fact, because he had fought them before.
And unlike this thing, this mandala, drugs had never fought back.
14
They sat for hours in the temple room, in silent confrontation as tense as any hostage crisis. Meanwhile, the weather worsened; the storm was finally hitting Cinderton.
Rain tapped the windows almost politely at first, but he sensed a growing impatience in everything.
He wasn't sure if he could reason with her. The mandalas spoke a different language, but somehow they had communicated with humans before—such as when they had dictated their commentary to Derek Crowe. He hoped this one would consent to understand him.
He considered it a victory when he convinced Lenore to remove the knifetip from her skin. Blood continued to run down her throat, but the trickle eventually slowed and scabbed over. She kept the knife at her throat, however, holding herself ransom. He told himself that he could see fear in her eyes, that she knew what was happening to her and was as afraid as he; but that was a desperate rationalization, and most of the time he didn't believe it. The truth was, he couldn't see anything he recognized in her eyes.
His gaze never moved from the knife, waiting for signs that her arm was tiring, waiting for the blade to shift however briefly. She seemed tireless.
"What could you gain by hurting her?" he asked. But the mandala had not consented to speak. He waited for a faint touch on his own mind, some sign that it was attempting astral communication, but there was only the prickling static of his own jolted nerves. He was trembling with fatigue, hunger, and fear.
"Why won't you speak to me? What do you want me to do?"
Lenore's eyes cleared. He could see her emerging from some inner fog, looking out at him as if amazed at her surroundings. Still, she held herself rigid, and the knife stayed fixed at her throat.
"Michael ... Michael, what's happening?"
"I don't know for sure, hon. I'm trying to figure it out."
"There's something on—no, in me."
She was close to tears, the blade trembling. She cut herself again, accidentally this time, and twitched at the pain.
"Make it stop, Michael!"
"I don't know how."
"You have to. You started it! You made me go to that lecture."
This reminder gouged his soul. He was responsible. He wanted to turn away, in shame, but he didn't dare lose a chance to grab the knife.
"I wrote to Derek Crowe," he admitted. "For advice. I was hoping he would know."
"Yes," she said, voice laden with desperation. "He must know. But I can't wait. I'm frightened. Anything could happen. We have to get to him now. He knows what to do."
Michael shook his head. "Lenore, we don't have the money."
"We could drive. ..."
"Drive? That's like three thousand miles! It would take days. I can't reach him by phone, and we can't just wait around. We have to do something else now. Something practical. We're on our own."
It was a relief to be talking to her, even with the knife poised so threateningly; but he had to remind himself that this was not necessarily Lenore. The mandala had not let her speak all afternoon. Why would it relax its grip now?
Her eyes filled with tears. "Please, Michael ... we have to get to him. He's the only one. ..."
He could call Crowe's publisher, he thought. But he knew they wouldn't give him Crowe's number.
"It's going to be all right," he said uncertainly.
"How can you say that? You don't know what I'm feeling. I'm fighting, but I don't know how long I can hold on."
"Do whatever you have to. But we're alone, all right? I—I'll try to think of something."
"No. We need help. We need Derek Crowe."
He shared her conviction but didn't want to admit it. There was no way to get help in anything like the time they needed it; and certainly no way of getting Crowe to fly out here, once they did get in touch with him. But Michael couldn't admit defeat when the battle was only beginning.
Lenore crumpled abruptly, pressing at her stomach as if her guts were being ripped out. Instinctively he threw himself at her.
She was ready for him, though. It had been a trap. She thrust the knife at his face. It grazed his cheek, but he managed to knock it out of her hand and push
her to the carpet, digging his knee into her back. He had a leather cord balled in his hand, the one with which Elias Mooney's tapes had been wrapped. He got it around her wrists, wrapped and cinched and knotted it as tight as he could, then released her. There were more twists of leather in the bureau, among the candle stubs and incense packets and broken charcoal bits; he wondered if he should bind her feet. She looked broken now, defeated. Surely he couldn't have beaten it so easily. But maybe he had won her a kind of freedom by binding her, by rendering her useless to the mandala.
She lay panting, not struggling for the moment. Outside, the storm broke. The wind howled louder, and a banging and lashing began, as if giants with whips had come to flail the sides of the house. It was tree branches, he hoped, mixed with the pelting of hail. He was glad that bookcases covered the windows. For a moment, he felt that they were at the center of the storm, in its calm eye, surrounded on all sides by elements more powerful than themselves—barricaded here, unable to send for help ... if help even existed in this world.
He had to do something. He couldn't sit and wait idly for the next psychic attack.
He should take her to the hospital. The mandalas wouldn't be able to accomplish anything there. She'd be under observation, clinically confined, no use to them. They would vanish under the prodding of technology, the scrutiny of science, as such things always did. The mandalas would sublimate into mental ghosts, neurosis, psychosis; they would become symptomatic of Lenore's own sickness.
But could he truly take her, knowing they might lock her away? Wouldn't that be the deepest sort of betrayal?
Truthfully, he almost welcomed the possibility that she was sick and all they had experienced was shared delusion. Science would labor mightily to preserve his belief in a neutral universe. Thinking in this manner, he grew almost desperate to see the doctors and hear their lofty reassurances.
"I'm sorry, Lenore," he whispered, apologizing in advance for what he was about to do. The scientists would take things out of his hands. They would take Lenore....
A decision—even the wrong decision—would give him a sense of empowerment.
It was freezing outside. The roads would be treacherous. He had to get her bundled up. The trickle of blood on his cheek reminded him to keep his guard.
He supposed she would be safest in the temple room while he got things ready. He hadn't actually cast a circle, so he needn't worry about breaking through it; apparently the mandalas didn't respect such things anyway. He went into the living room and dug a pair of socks and cotton long Johns out of the heaped laundry. There was no way to get a shirt on her without loosening the cords, and he didn't think that would be wise just yet. He took her heavy down jacket out of the closet.
Lenore was struggling with her bonds when he got back. She made a fierce effort to rise, her face red with rage and terror.
"Don't hurt yourself," he said, hurrying over to her.
"Me? What are you doing?"
"Try to remember. You keep going in and out of trances."
"Trances?" She looked at him as if he were an idiot. "Goddamn it, untie me right this fucking minute!"
"Lenore, I'm sorry, I can't. You took a knife to me."
She set her jaw and caught her breath, her eyes red and burning, her voice pitched low as she said, "If you don't untie me by the time I count to three ..."
"I can't."
"One ..."
He shook his head. "Lenore, I won't do it."
"Two ..."
"Don't ask me, 'cause—"
She gained her feet and hurled herself at him, screaming "Three!" The altar shook as he struck it; candles toppled, salt and water spilled. He sank to the ground, Lenore standing over him. She stared down, naked under her robe with her hands tied behind her back, looking as if she'd like to crush his face under her heel. He was glad he hadn't put shoes on her yet. He tensed for the attack.
But she didn't move; her breathing slowed. She sank to her knees, weeping.
"Michael ... Michael, where am I?" she said. "What's happening?"
He got up quickly, slid his arms around her. "You're here, with me. It's okay."
With her head against him, she whimpered the words, "We have to go to Derek Crowe."
Michael sighed. "That's impossible."
"Please. ..."
"I'll—I'll take you to the hospital, okay?"
"The hospital? They can't do anything!"
"You'll be safer there than here."
"Doctors can't help me. I'll die in there. They'll kill me. They'll do things to my brain! Please, let's go to California."
"How could you last that long?"
"I'd be all right just knowing we're going for help—for real help. It'd help me be strong. There's something here that gives them strength and takes it out of me. We've got to get away. Please, Michael!"
"Oh, Lenore."
Her voice was hoarse, her eyes red-rimmed. But she put on an air of calm and sank forward until he was supporting her entire weight. She moaned against his shoulder.
"You don't love me anymore, do you? You don't care what happens to me. You'd let them lock me up in a hospital when you know it's not even my fault. It's something you did to me and you won't take responsibility. You're such a fucking shit!"
He sighed. It came to him then that he could win her cooperation with a small lie. But he had to make it convincing.
"Jesus," he said. "I don't believe I'm saying this. All right. We'll go. If it makes you feel stronger to know it, we'll go."
He felt her relax with a shudder. "Thank God. Thank you, Michael."
"You just stay here for a minute. Let me help you put on these clothes. Then I'll go warm up the car, and ask Tucker to keep an eye on the place, okay? Then we'll pack whatever we need."
She looked at him, grateful as a child for a small favor, and let him dress her. Once her underwear and long Johns were on, he zipped up the coat like a straitjacket, her arms trapped inside it. She leaned slightly forward, her face looking green and fatigued.
"Are you going to be okay?" he asked.
"I can hold out."
He went onto the front porch, down the steps, toward her car. It was black night, later than he'd realized. Sleet slashed sideways in an icy wind. It would be cruel to stuff Lenore into the VW; her car was roomy and stable; he felt safer in bad weather. He climbed inside the Cutlass and tugged the heavy door shut, but the engine refused to turn over. He tried as long as he dared, but he didn't like leaving Lenore in the house; he could barely see lights through the trees. Anything could be happening back there.
So the Beetle won by default. He hurried back to it and the motor turned over easily. He left it purring in the drive and returned to the house, already soaking wet and freezing.
It was true that he needed to pay Tucker a visit, but not for the reason he'd told Lenore. He intended to ask him about whatever drugs he'd been supplying. When he surrendered to the doctors, he would tell them everything they needed to diagnose Lenore's condition. Only Tucker could say what he'd been dispensing.
From Tucker's landing, he glanced back at the yard and shivered. The porch lights cast stark shadows through the hedges and trees, making them look artificial. The scene resembled a set from a horror movie, complete with ground fog—actually exhaust from the idling car.
He peered through the plastic storm window into the kitchen. The only light came from the refrigerator, which was ajar. Tucker must be up front. He knocked loudly.
No answer. He tried the knob and it turned. Tucker didn't usually mind if he walked right in. Opening the door, he unleashed a blast of music.
"Hey, Tuck? Tucker? It's Michael. You home?"
He shut the door loudly behind him and pushed the fridge shut as he passed.
The doors in the hall were closed. He rapped lightly on Tucker's bedroom door, which was directly over the temple downstairs. Hearing no answer, he went down the hall into the living room.
It was empty. All the lights were on a
nd the stereo howled. The frozen wind had reached inside, chilling the whole house. He touched the volume knob, cranking the racket down to a bearable level, figuring this would bring Tucker out of hiding—or at least alert him to Michael's presence.
In the comparative quiet, he grew aware of the house's exceptional stillness. Maybe Tucker wasn't home after all.
"Tuck? Scarlet?"
Going back down the hall, he tapped the bedroom door a bit louder than before. This time he heard a scratching sound.
He opened the door a few inches, peeking at a strip of poster-covered wall. He jumped when something brushed his ankle, but it was only Scabby, slipping out of the room. The cat padded away down the bare wood boards, leaving sticky pawprints.
"Uh-oh, Scabby's in trouble...."
The door swung open the rest of the way.
The first thing he saw was the pattern on the wall. That drew and held his eyes, despite everything else, despite the shattered racks of ribs and torn red meat heaped on the bed below, where two figures lay twisted in the confused and broken pile of their own bones, with their flesh hanging in rags. If nothing else, the design provided a focus for his incomprehension, a welcome distraction from horror.
The pattern might have been lifted intact from The Mandala Rites, from the very frontispiece that had started all his trouble—the same living symbol that had materialized the other night in the room below this one, the same mandala he had seen tonight with its thin tubes sunk in Lenore's skull. It was like a charcoal rubbing of the mandala, done in dark-red pigments, lacking some details but capturing its essence. The same arrangement of radial arms, that subtle double ring of dots suggesting beaded eyes. For a moment, all he could think was that Tucker Doakes had found a copy of The Mandala Rites and obsessively painted the image on his wall, blotting it indiscriminately over plaster and picture frames and the heavy metal album posters he had tacked and taped up everywhere.
But the color of the mandala matched too closely the gory mess that soaked the sheets.
The mandala must have passed through the wall after rising from the red bath of Tucker's and Scarlet's bodies. The plaster had acted as a sieve, separating the physical from the astral substance, leaving this pattern behind.
The 37th mandala : a novel Page 14