Lady Lazarus

by Michele Lang

  The lady caught my gaze and smiled. “A trick of the light.” And her smile widened to reveal tiny, pearly teeth.

  “Of course, a trick of the light and shadows,” I agreed. No need to antagonize this powerful witch unnecessarily.

  I said, “Eva, we are privileged to meet Lucretia de Merode.”

  “Not the dancer?”

  “No. Perhaps, Madame, you are a relative of hers?”

  The mysterious lady’s smile widened still more. “You speak of Cleo de Merode? Why yes, I am her great-great-aunt.”

  And my sense of wonder grew. For that meant Capa’s friend and Trudy’s cousin must be well over one hundred years old.

  I nodded slowly at her, truly impressed and a bit awed. “Forgive me for intruding upon your private enclave. It is only by necessity.”

  “Of course. We must stop the Nazi dogs together, together.” She swept the air with an expansive arm. “Please.” And she motioned for us to enter her parlor and seat ourselves.

  We pushed through the shimmering beaded curtain. No gentlemen callers were present at this unfashionable hour, though prostitutes clothed in flimsy lace and translucent silk peignoirs dotted the old-fashioned embroidered cushions and drifted along the thick Persian carpets, looking half asleep. Some of the ladies sipped steaming cups of tea and nibbled languidly at thickly buttered rolls.

  “Pay these pretty mortal flowers no mind,” Lucretia said. “They speak no French, or hardly any. We may speak freely among them in any case.”

  Despite my admiration, there was no way I would reveal the details of my journey to Madame de Merode, no matter how beautiful her manners or mesmerizing her living jewels. I sat at the edge of an overstuffed scarlet divan with puckered armrests, and I tried my best to relax, to savor the homey smells of tea and butter and the loveliness of the blowsy ladies resting like sleepy butterflies all around.

  I leaned over to Eva to warn her against eating any of the refreshments, and saw her curled eyelashes fluttering as she slouched in a man’s winged armchair and sighed long and luxuriantly. As I watched, she half sang something unintelligible and laughed under her breath.

  I turned my attention to Lucretia de Merode. “We have entered your parlor indeed, Madame,” I said, with a ghost of a smile tickling at the corners of my lips.

  “It is safe enough for you,” she replied, an edge of something dangerous playing in her voice for the first time.

  I sat straighter on the slippery cushions, leaned forward to drive my meaning home to Madame de Merode. “It must be safe for my sister Eva as well. She stays with me.”

  Her luscious, overripe lips pursed in exasperation. “Tut, tut, Lazarus. She is a ravishing flower, no wonder you clutch her to your breast like a boutonniere. You know it is within my rights to claim her.”

  It was a shame: Lucretia de Merode was too dangerous to trust, despite her connections. Thank you anyway, Capa, I mentally muttered over the miles to my daring friend in Paris. “I know no such thing, Madame de Merode. I thank you for your kind hospitality . . .” and I rose to grab Eva’s hand and go.

  “Peace, Lazarus!” When I glanced at the witch again, her beautiful glamour had all but dissipated and I saw her true. Beneath the diaphanous exterior boiled a core of molten iron.

  Slowly, I sat back down, considered my next step. Raziel could not violate the witch’s wards without touching off a magical battle. Eva was drugged into a happy stupor.

  But I was out of other ideas. This witch madam had the power and the determination to help me fight my enemies and regain my inheritance. And her relation to Trudy and her Bavarian coven inclined me to trust her. Her dangerousness was an opportunity; I decided to rely on Capa’s judgment after all.

  I stated the obvious. “We share a common enemy.”

  Her laugh tinkled like broken glass. “Of a certainty. We are sisters, you and I. Of blood and vocation. And we seek the same treasure. We are after more impressive quarry together, after all.”

  When I said nothing, she leaned forward, and I could see how deep were the pits of her eyes. “The Book.” She could not keep an edge of excitement from creeping into her voice, and she licked her lips slowly, as if she could taste the Book’s power, throbbing somewhere as yet undiscovered.

  This time I could not restrain a groan. “Who is this Ulysses Knox? And why does everyone in Europe know my family secret, better than I?”

  Lucretia’s long fingers stroked the spider babies at her ears. “Ulysses? You have met him. He is a hunter of rare books.”

  “You know that is not what I mean.”

  Lucretia studied her elegantly manicured fingertips while her spiders fidgeted and played with the jet-black tendrils of hair tucked behind her ears.

  She spoke to her open palms, not to me. “He is a Mason. An American of great antiquity, one of the first ones, with connections to the Illuminati. He is a magical cousin of that general, Henry Knox, in the American Revolution.” Slowly, she looked up at me, her chin tucked low as she smiled. “Ah, but that was before your time.”

  I swallowed hard, held absolutely still. Madame de Merode was a marvel; her spellwork was profound enough to hold at bay death’s advance. I could only return from the place where death still held dominion; this petite, extraordinary person had never gone there, and there was no sign that Lucretia de Merode would ever visit the country of death at all.

  Her answer only led to a labyrinth of more questions. “Is he a spy?”

  Lucretia extracted a nail file from an invisible pocket hidden somewhere within her voluminous skirts, and she set to repairing her already-perfect manicure. “Perhaps, but I would more accurately describe the man as a patriot. His business is to traffic in spellcasting books and grimoires, and he is the primary dealer of magical books in Amersterdam. Knox publicly claims to be in Europe for himself only, but he is no more here for selfish reasons than you are—no matter how loudly the two of you protest the fact.”

  “Will you help me find the Book?”

  Her eyes flared into life at the prospect, and she met my gaze with a greed she did not bother to disguise. “Most certainly, with pleasure.”

  “Why?”

  Her smile grew hard, and the wrinkles over her face grew more pronounced, as if the skin underneath was straining against a fine netting pulled tight. “Those Nazi bastards. I want them to die, every last one of them.”

  “Ah, another patriot.” I was immune to the hallucinogenic effects of the spiders’ parlor, but the surrealism of the scene only increased, melting all around me like a Dalí painting. Despite the running colors and the increasingly discordant tones of my hostess’s voice, I clung to the truth with the passion of a true believer.

  I did not care how those who killed my family met their ends, or who claimed credit for the deed. By now, I knew in my marrow that war could not be set aside. My ancestral grandmama from Ein Dor had spoken true. But that harsh decree only meant I would fight until death claimed me for good.

  Lucretia de Merode’s laughter echoed weirdly in the overheated room, and Eva startled awake with a little snort. “If I could wield that book myself, Lazarus, I would have uncovered it and used it long before now, yes? It must be you, young and green in your witchery.”

  I could not keep from shuddering. “September the first, the window closes. So my ancestor has spoken to me. If the Book remains hidden after that date, it will remain hidden forever, and our fate is sealed.”

  “Ah, but it is too late for that, my dear. Did that rascal Ulysses not tell you?”

  My heart began thudding in my chest, a throb echoing it at the base of my throat. “Too late?”

  “Those demonesses. They have already located it, here in Amsterdam. They now need only to claim it.”

  Suddenly, I understood Knox’s eagerness to keep my three murderesses close. I buried my face in my hands. “And I chased them away myself. I am a vengeful fool.”

  Lucretia whispered something in a language I could not understand, and I l
ooked up in time to see the twin spiders leap from her ears, trot neatly down each of her long, soft arms, and down the hem of her diaphanous skirts. They skittered through the deep pile of the Persian silk carpet under our feet, and disappeared into the lurid shadows of the seraglio.

  “All is not yet lost, my lovely creature. You must hunt your hunters, and I will teach you how to do it.”

  20

  AUGUST 1939

  AMSTERDAM

  And so Lucretia did teach me, as I had never allowed my mother to do, and the days passed in a slow dream. That first afternoon, after we had tucked Eva up to bed in an unused bedroom high up under the eaves, she and I settled in her private sitting room for my lessons.

  She stood before me, shimmering in the starlight filtering in through the thick, ancient leaded glass in the window. She looked so infernally lovely that her question surprised me more than it should have: “Do you know what is a midrash?”

  “Do I know . . .” My voice trailed off, and I sat down uncertainly at the edge of her impressive, high and fluffy bed. “I must confess I don’t.”

  “It is nothing more than a story, little mother. I want you to relax and open your ears, so I can relate to you the midrash of the lovely Lucretia de Merode, that is, me.”

  I leaned back on the cushions and forgot my shyness, for her contralto voice soothed me even as it instructed.

  “In the beginning, there was lust; in the beginning, there was envy and desire. The ways of women, the methods of managing the body’s hunger; the ways of witches, the way to channel and manifest man’s will.

  “When the Lord created the world, His holy sparks emanated throughout the universe. Witches bring these sparks to life, and it is our free will to decide whether we bring them back to the Almighty, or rend the earth and snuff the sparks into darkness.

  “We Sisters of Arachne call upon the living breath in metal. We call upon the holy sparks that imbue the bones of the Earth with the breath of the Maker. We weave the holy words into a web of power. We catch the holy sparks in a net of magical speech.

  “Dear little heart, the spine of our magic is in the word. The Lazarus line, so ancient, derives its power from the Hebrew tongue. All languages retain their native magic, but Hebrew is the Word that the Lord spoke when He separated the sky from the sea, and moved along the surface of the water.

  “How can you not know your Mother Tongue! Ah, the debased age in which we live! Little star, I cannot teach you your inheritance, but I can give you a tale of when your auntie Lucretia was young, another unlearned witchling.

  “Your power resides within your soul, your breath, little star. I, a courtesan, first discovered that power in the act of love with men. I capture the sparks that men throw off, and I whisper the words of power to weave them into webs of spell.

  “I grew up in my mother’s house of sin; in Venice did I come of age. A great price the first man paid to lie with me, an untouched maid of thirteen.

  “My mother taught me the power of no, and of yes. She gave me the power to weigh the bargain, set the price, and choose the winning bid. I did not need the entire language of my courtesan creed to wield that basic power. Those men, who thought they could force me to say yes, they did not understand the depth of a woman’s power.

  “The strength to prevail, my love, does not rest in no or yes. The greatest magic is an ability to bring a no or yes to the lips of the men who surround you. Thus, your vulnerability contains your greatest power.

  “Such complexities of lore I have no time to teach you: the magic of numbers, of herbs, of runes, of time. Your magic grows from a different root than mine, it originates from the word no. A Havdalah word, a word that separates, defines, clarifies. I cannot teach you all of your magical language in the remnant of time we have together. So hold on to your no, dear witchling.

  “I will teach you the spells by rote: animate them with your no. We will learn the spell of erasure, the spell of binding, and the spell of the word of Solomon. First I will teach you the bare words, stripped of meaning, pure of sound. Then we learn the meaning of the words. Finally, we teach the meaning of the silence: the moment before a word is spoken, the moment after.

  “But, my sweet, first you must understand that I cannot teach you how to wield your magic at its apex. I will give you the basic elements of magic: your breath, your no, will give the magic life. I wish I had the time to teach you proper, Magdalena Lazarus. But time slips through our fingers, whether we make full use of it or not. So, we begin.”

  By then, that first afternoon, I had fallen asleep in the gentle cadence of her words. But I had found a safe haven in which to rest; I served my craft of witchery in repose as well as in action. The spiders returned that night, and they verified my story and vouched for my trustworthiness, by ways I still do not understand.

  Magical Amsterdam lay hidden within a maze of canals, arched bridges, and cobblestone streets, treacherous and labyrinthine. But blood calls to blood; one morning, too soon after I had come to my refuge in the brothel, my living blood tingled and burned like fire in my veins.

  The demonesses were using the life force they had stolen from me in the Austrian countryside. And my book returned their demonic call, responding to my blood, stolen or no. Too soon, it was time for me to seek my fate.

  Before I arose, I wrapped myself in scented sheets in my tangled bed and, my skin burning with the call of my blood, I thought of Raziel. The country of the heart is not measured in meters; spheres of heaven separated us, but he and I walked the same darkened, shadowed path.

  I made my hurried farewells. There was no question of Eva coming with me; it was a comfort to know she stayed safe with Lucretia. When she tried to speak, I hushed her, kissed her cheeks, and held her close. I thought of Capa, knew I needed no more reminders, and I twisted the red-gold ring off my pinkie finger and gave it to my dearest friend from Tokaj.

  My blood had spoken, but I did not have an exact address. I took a cab and directed the cabbie from street to street, frightening him as I navigated by my inner senses, not a map. We finally arrived in front of a huge, abandoned-looking warehouse at the crumbling edge of the Nieuwe Zijde district. My fear drew me forward, the true north of my magical compass.

  The very air smelled of blood. Something horrible rose up from inside the big brick building rearing up in front of me, something coppery and diabolical and hungry for my soul.

  I threw open the heavy double doors. My blood all but boiled; a tremendous urgency to expend the wordless magic I possessed rose up in me like sap.

  The main floor of the warehouse, dark and cobwebby, seemed deserted. A rush of human ghosts brushed past me like a cloud of bats, desperate to escape the building via the thin sliver of light I had admitted by throwing the doors ajar. I left the front doors wide open so they could cross the wards of the place and seek the light, and I ran through the main level to a wrought-iron staircase at the back of the echoing silence.

  I heard a clatter and stopped dead in my tracks, a shuddering gasp trapped in my throat. I turned, but all I could see was my own huge shadow stretching behind me. When nobody attacked, I ran, echoes radiating all around me, and found myself in a towering two-story-high warehouse, stuffed to the rafters with books.

  And guns.

  I ascended the huge iron staircase as quietly as I could, whispering Arachne endearments to the metal to silence the echoes and keep my progress a secret. The sound of my footfalls died away and I reached a stifling, dusty second level, lit only by the dappled sunlight filtering through filthy, gigantic leaded windows.

  The demonesses three clustered around a bound volume that glowed hot white in the darkness surrounding us. I drew up short as they turned, and bit my lower lip so hard I tasted blood.

  This wasn’t the Book that called me.

  Their leader, Enepsigos, pointed at me and screamed something incomprehensible, a shriek of primal triumph. They clustered around me, blocking my exit back down the stairs. “Ah, little sist
er,” Enepsigos hissed. “Too late. Always too late, for you.”

  I said nothing, only licked at my bleeding lip and fought to catch my breath. A wind rose to a mighty shriek all around us, but it left me untouched. The bound volume, still glowing white-hot, tore itself from Onoskelis’s golden fingertips and soared like a messenger pigeon into my open hands. The burgundy leather felt hot to the touch; I could not read Latin, so the leather cover’s stamped subtitles didn’t speak to me. But I flipped the book open and a surge of energy pumped through my body.

  The Book of Raziel. Written in smudged pencil in German, underneath the printed Latin on the title page.

  The demonesses keened and moaned in the still-punishing wind that whipped against me. I read and reread the title page in triumph, in wonder . . .

  With a sense of growing dismay . . .

  The words were printed. With a printing press. I expected a scroll dating from King Solomon’s time—in other words, not a bound printed book at all. A roll, lambskin or papyrus, something different. Not a printed, bound volume.

  The three demonesses hurled themselves at me, and I threw them back, using nothing more than the whispered word “no.”

  My blood and their violence both proved that my book was here, somewhere, in this warehouse. But the book in my hands, coveted by the demonesses or not, was not the Book we sought. It had power inherent as a copy of the original; all words contain power. But it was not the Book we were killing each other to find.

  “A disappointment, isn’t it.”

  That mild, slightly reproving German mutter almost brought me to my knees. The Staff. Hitler’s wizard. I should have known he would come, on an errand so important.

  I tore my gaze away from the book, and saw him standing on a chair halfway across the cavernous room. All of the fury of my magic hadn’t ruffled a single gray hair combed over the bald, oily head.