She nodded.
“How are you feeling?”
“I’m all right, now.”
He nodded and watched her for a moment longer. “In that case, I’ll go home. I need to talk to some people about the spring, and see about Tessa, of course.” He ran his hand through his brown curls. “We need to call the groups together for a town meeting.”
“I’m going to call Michael and sit in the sun. I need light after those visions.” Anne wrapped the shawl that decorated the back of the chair around herself.
“Red Spring will soothe you. Go sit by it, drink the water.”
“Let me know what else I can do to help you.”
“You have done more than enough. Check in with me this evening.”
“I will. Thank you.”
“Of course.” Garth stood and let himself out.
The first thing Anne did was to call a locksmith; she’d get all new locks and see about that door in the basement.
Chapter Sixteen
Cagliostro ran along the path through the woods on his land in the country, his heart thudding against his ribs. One of the Akitas paused to wait for him, but Cagliostro forced himself to keep going. Satisfied, the dog turned and loped ahead. Cagliostro despised this weakness that the last dive left him with. The only way to deal with it was to push past it, to train harder. He ran on, the trees a blur, and emerged in the formal garden on the east side of the house. One of the ground keepers stepped forward and called the dogs; they ran to her, tails wagging.
Cagliostro walked into the front entrance, shoes squeaking on the Italian marble. The butler handed him a towel and he wiped the sweat from his face. He threw the towel on the cork floor of the dining room and made his way to the gymnasium in the back of the house. He banged the door open, and Karl Mueller snapped to attention from a quad stretch.
“Kajukenbo,” he snapped. Mueller walked to the large mat in one corner of the room. In the mirrors surrounding the workout area, Cagliostro glimpsed the shadows beneath his eyes and his flushed skin. He turned his back on the reflection and gave his attention to his opponent. “Full force.”
Mueller’s eyebrow twitched up.
“Non-lethal,” Cagliostro said.
Mueller bowed, enclosing one fist in his palm, then took a stance. The man was a deadly concentration of muscle and reflexes, but Cagliostro knew his own spiritual power gave him an edge Mueller would never gain in this lifetime. He returned the bow and attacked.
Mueller stepped back, avoiding the first flurry of fists, then surged forward, sweeping his left leg around and knocking Cagliostro off balance. Cagliostro rolled with the impact and then came up in perfect form. Mueller stalked him, found an opening, and struck as fast as a jaguar, stinging his boss on the jaw. He followed with a kidney punch that sent him sprawling.
Cagliostro struggled to his feet and took his stance, wobbling a bit. Something flickered in Mueller’s eyes. “What?”
Mueller came out of a crouch. “Permission to speak freely, sir?”
“Granted.” Cagliostro maintained his fighting stance.
“You are not well, sir. It is not rational to push yourself—”
Cagliostro’s foot tapped Mueller’s temple, followed by a hard punch beneath the chin. He danced back. “You were saying?”
Mueller’s eyes darkened. He circled his boss, whose breath came now in ragged gasps. Mueller feigned an attack, then dropped down and delivered a solid punch to his opponent’s solar plexus. Cagliostro collapsed in a heap, trying desperately to catch his breath. Mueller stood over him. “I rest my case. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t be able to get that close to you.” He turned on his heel and went into the shower room, not waiting to be dismissed.
Goddamn his arrogance. Cagliostro ground his nails into his palms. He lay on the mat until his breathing returned to normal, a process that took entirely too long. He had to admit he was not fit for another round with the enormous crystal that lay waiting beneath the waters of the Caribbean and called to him in his dreams. It was agony to wait when all he ever yearned for was in his reach.
Cagliostro forced himself to his feet, not wanting his overheated muscles to grow cold and stiff, and climbed the stairs to his suite. He ran a hot bath and soaked. What exactly happened during that last dive? He went over and over it, but was sure a piece was missing from his memory. He witnessed a ceremony, people chanting arranged in a circle with complex lines of energy running everywhere. He saw it all through a golden haze. He woke up three days later a continent away.
He got out of the bath and called his physical therapist. Healing was like training; it required patience and persistence. After a massage, he called Miriam and Mueller to report to his office.
Cagliostro sat at his desk and checked his emails before the two arrived. A gold statue of the Egyptian god Amen stood behind him; it once decorated the Holy of Holies at Luxor. An original draft of Abra-Mellin, the Mage, the magical grimoire by S. L. MacGregor Mathers, sat under glass on one side of the room. Above it hung a painting he commissioned himself, depicting the city he dreamt of often—airy domes awash in the slanted rays of the sun, spires leaping into the sky like flames; a round stone omphalos of deepest black sat in the middle of a pool of water; a face framed by wild curls looked on from behind a pillar, her sensual mouth drawn back in a smile. It was how he remembered it. Atlantis, the land he longed for.
Miriam arrived first. She nodded in greeting and started to speak, but thought better of it. He gestured for her to sit. Mueller walked in a few minutes later, looking annoyingly fresh.
“Thank you for deigning to join us, Mister Mueller,” Cagliostro said, although the criticism was unjustified. “I would like your reports. First, the crystal?”
“Undisturbed,” Mueller said, his face placid. “No boats have come near the site. It seems that no one else knows of its discovery.”
Cagliostro nodded. “The other sentinels?”
“We’ve learned of one more possibility,” Miriam said. “A stone held by a private collector in India, an old Sufi family.”
“How secure is the artifact?”
“The family relies on a small security force picked from the military and privately trained. Their technology is not up to date, however. Medium threat.”
Mueller sniffed as if he disagreed, but when Cagliostro looked at him, he said nothing.
“Fine. Let’s collect it. I want to have more crystal power before we make our next attempt, which needs to be soon. We can’t rely on that crystal remaining undetected.” He fixed Mueller with a look. He would not admit to them that what he really needed was more time to heal. Maybe he’d call on his old mentor, Cornelius Waldman. Even at eighty-two, the man was still sharp. He might make up a potion for him, but then he might pick up more information than Cagliostro wanted to share. Better not to risk it.
“There’s one more thing.” Miriam sat straight in her chair.
A dry stick, that one, Cagliostro thought. Maybe he needed someone fresh for his bed, someone whose virginity he could take, along with her vitality.
“The Le Clairs are on our trail,” Miriam said.
“This is news?” Cagliostro asked with a snort.
“They know we’re looking for Atlantean crystals.”
“Of course they do. That’s what we took from Mister Rhodes, your old Grand Master.” He watched her for any signs of regret. Finding none, he continued, “Is there anything specific?”
“They seem to think you’re looking for a fragment of the Chintamani Stone.”
Cagliostro steepled his fingers and stared into the painting. An interesting idea, he had to admit. “Do we know the location of this fragment?”
“No, sir.”
“Do they?”
“Michael Levy is searching for it.”
“Find i
t before he does, but after we’ve secured the sentinel.”
Miriam hesitated.
“Is there a problem?”
“That last could prove difficult.” She looked at the statue behind him, avoiding meeting his gaze directly.
He stared at her until she lowered her eyes to his. “Do not disappoint me again, Miriam.” He was truly ready to be done with her. He wouldn’t mind if she failed.
* * * *
Anne stretched out in bed and pulled the duvet up to her chin. The clock downstairs chimed eight, but it felt more like midnight. Her calves ached from her sunset hike up the Tor, and now her head started to throb. Her stomach was still uneasy. Sleep would fix it all.
Michael called from the Rosicrucian headquarters in Freiburg soon after he arrived. Franz extended him the same courtesies he always gave Thomas—carte blanche to explore their records, along with free room and board for as long as it took. She missed her brother. One of the world’s foremost metaphysical scholars, he brought her the security only an older brother could. Thomas was always there to try something first, to take the blame when something went wrong, to tell her what to expect when she was entering a new phase of life.
She switched off the light and lay listening to the faint sounds of people gathered at White Spring. A new vagrant showed up and seemed to be camping there; he had a flute. The town seemed to take turns caring for him, and really he posed no threat to her…provided that he was really a vagrant and not some black ops agent. Besides, Bob was still staying at Berachah on the corner. He stayed in Glastonbury rather than follow Michael to Germany, saying Cagliostro was the one to pay attention to, not his security force. Anne wondered if he was right.
She turned on her back and began to build a sacred circle around the room. Just before she sealed it, a scratch came from the back porch, and then a whine. She ran down the stairs and opened the back door. The hound stood there, her red ears perked forward, looking up with those ice blue eyes.
Anne filled a bowl with water, which the dog ignored. “Hungry?”
In answer, the dog trotted through the hallway, up the stairs, and sat on the rug at the foot of the bed. Anne watched her for a moment from the doorway. The hound lay down and studied Anne in turn. “You want to sleep here?” she asked.
The dog lay her head down on her front paws and sighed.
“I’m glad of the company,” Anne said. She climbed in bed and switched off the lamp again. The dog’s eyes reflected some stray light from the street; she thought only cats’ eyes did that. She rebuilt the sacred circle, including her new companion, and fell asleep.
The dream came immediately.
* * * *
Megan looked around the stone vigil hut she sat in now, remembering the youthful tears she shed the afternoon she received the crystal key from the Morgen. She wept to learn that she would not see Govannan for another year, afraid he would forget his insignificant new apprentice. If only she knew then…but wasn’t this the universal lament of the aged? To think she grew as old as the ancient Morgen before even a hundred years passed. She took a few ragged breaths in a vain attempt to fill her lungs fully, then pushed on with her story.
“My year in Avalon went by smoothly. They put me to work with the other girls doing the daily gardening, tending the sheep, spinning the wool, doing all the tasks that keep people fed and clothed. At first I rebelled. After all, I was the daughter of Diaprepes, the High Prince of Atlantis. My mother was born here, however, daughter of a priestess of Avalon, conceived of the High Rite I’d just witnessed. Avalon was a center in its own right, but everything was interconnected in those days, the Earth balanced by the great stone monuments. They were shaped to reflect the stars above in precise harmonic resonance.
“I settled into this routine, trusting the Lady, if not the Morgen, and every so often the Lady would send me to another temple to help with a ceremony. I grew accustomed to blending my energy with others in rituals…they were strangers, people I’d probably never see again. That year, I traveled to Crete, Greece, Egypt, Palenque, even Tibet.”
Caitir’s look of wonder broke Megan’s heart all over again. Caitir’s options were curtailed. She would never see the wide world. She would remain within a few hundred miles of this place her whole life, and that life would be short, if the trends continued. Megan forced herself to go on.
“Soon I could feel the intricate weaves of energies around me, yet stayed grounded in my own strand. Sometimes the Lady would give me a lesson separate from the other girls. I’ll never forget the first time she took me into the hill. There were three of us, but we went on separate nights.”
* * * *
Megan followed the Lady of Avalon up the hill, remaining beside the stream. She prepared for the coming rite spending the night in the ritual hut alone, fasting, listening to the whispering of the waters, feeling the hands of the spirit women who attended Red Spring reach into her body and adjust her own streams of energy. She watched the sun move across the sky as she sat among the hectic reds, yellows, and orange leaves of the season. The Lady came for her at dusk.
Acorns crunched beneath their feet and then moss came to soften their steps, the sibilant whispering of the water ever present. When the two streams parted, they followed the clear white one until they came to the cave that held the source of White Spring. A quarter moon stood in the darkening sky, just visible between the branches of the forest. The Lady motioned for her to sit. “The Seven Sisters will rise, followed by the Hunter and his Dog Star, and stand at the apex of the sky at midnight. This marks the beginning of the winter half of the year. The Wild Hunt rides.”
A shiver ran the length of Megan’s spine.
The Lady put a comforting hand on her shoulder, warm in the cooling night. “You have nothing to fear from the High Ones, regardless of the stories the village girls tell. It is safe to eat and drink with them, to accept any gifts. Show proper respect.”
Megan frowned up at her, but the Lady offered no further comfort. “Gather your intention as you sit here. Once you have clear in your mind what you wish to know, walk into the Crystal Cave and follow your inner urgings. There may be outward signs as well.” In the fading light, her face, shadowed by the red shawl, was unreadable.
“I don’t know what to ask,” Megan said. “What do you recommend?”
The Lady stood suddenly and loomed over her. “It is time to stop asking childish questions and claim your life for yourself. Look deep into your heart.” She pushed her forefinger into Megan’s chest. “That is where you will find what you need to know. We will watch for your return…if you do return.” With that, she turned her back on Megan and walked away.
Megan’s heart lurched. “Wait,” she shouted, but she knew the Lady of Avalon would not look back. Soon the mists swallowed her tall figure, and she was gone.
Megan sat at the entrance to the Crystal Cave, listening to the flow of water around rocks, letting her breath slow. The images of the Wild Hunt that the girls whispered about in the dark of their dormitory filled her mind—the huge hooves of the horses, the sharp teeth of the hounds, the exquisite, terrible beauty of the fae themselves. She shivered again and tried to remember Govannan, the music of the shells in his hair and the thrill his laugh called into her heart, but his image was fading. How could she believe in the warm sun and bright colors of Eden, surrounded as she was by mists and shadow? Was the enormous crystal in the Matrix Chamber even real? What about her connection to Govannan? Was it just a girl’s infatuation?
She realized with a start that now she thought of the Megan who was taken to the Crystal Matrix Chamber as a child. She pulled the crystal the old Morgen gave her six months earlier out of her pocket and put the stone into her palm. It winked at her, as if asking her to take courage. She had grown accustomed to the stone and learned to scry in its slender sides, but why did the Morgen give it to her?
This would be her question. Perhaps they all were. They all added up to one question: What is the purpose of this life? Megan blew these thoughts across her palm into the crystal key, then stood and walked into the cave behind her.
The way was ordinary enough at first. Water ran beside a well-worn path, trickling through water-smoothed pebbles. A pool gathered between large rocks that jutted out on one side of the hill. She climbed up and looked into the water, but saw only herself, her blue eyes wide, her hair a mess of curls in the humidity. Stilling herself, she let her focus rest just past the surface of the pool and waited. Nothing came, only an urge to move on.
The path forked and Megan stopped, waiting for some indication of which way she should follow. Again, nothing came, so she picked the smaller one and walked on. Soon it narrowed. White calcite points hung from the ceiling and whiter quartz veined the walls. A large boulder loomed before her, blocking the path. She scrambled around it and, on the other side, heard a faint sound of drumming. The faeries were dancing, preparing for the Wild Hunt. She crouched beside the boulder, but no one came. The sound remained constant. Gathering her courage, she crept forward. The drums grew stronger.
Suddenly, the passageway opened out. A lake stretched before her, its surface velvet black. Mist filled the air, dampening her hair and face. She ran her tongue over her lips. White Spring water.
“Breathe onto the key,” came a voice. “Ask for light.”
Megan did as she was instructed, and the crystal became a torch in her hand, burning with a cool light. She held it aloft and stood, overpowered by the sight before her. Light reflected from the ceiling and walls like stars within the earth. Crystals and gemstones sparkled from every direction. Long and graceful clear crystal points reached for the water. Amethyst geodes glinted in the black rock. Streaks of blue dusted with gold gave way to ruby reds and clear yellow stones. Chunks of rose quartz and deeper rhodocrocite blossomed from the walls like a field of wild flowers.
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