With no warning, the shadow reared up, taller than a living man, and reached for Milos on the cot.
The stench of burning flesh filled the house and the shadow screamed, burned by the amulet it must not have expected to find around Milos’ little neck. The shadow screamed again and lunged for the door.
Nadezda sprang up, screaming herself. She held the Candlemas candle aloft, like a firebrand. Its light seemed brilliant in the otherwise dark room. The shadow halted abruptly, apparently unsure of how to get to the door behind the now-awake Nadezda and the barrier of the Candlemas candle. The shadow leaned towards a window that opened out into the street.
“Senoi! Sansenoi! Samangeloph!” Nadezda cried. “I have Lilith trapped! Seize her and carry her away!” Instantaneously, before she could draw her breath again, the three angels were there, fiery indistinct presences in the three corners of the room across from the icon. Nadezda thought she could make out the outline of human forms hovering within the hearts of the flames but she had no time to study them closely. “Stop!” Nadezda said, startling the angels. “Leave her be—for just a moment!” She knew they wished to seize the immortal crone they had been hunting since before the sin of Adam, but they halted.
The shadow in the midst of the room screamed again and buried what might have been its face in its talons.
“Lilith! Heed my words!” Nadezda dared to order the demoness as one would a hysterical child. “Heed my words or I will give you over to be carried off by the angels.” She thrust the burning Candlemas candle in her hand at the shadow as if it were a sword in a duel to the death. The shadow shuddered and in the light of the candle thrust toward its face, it shimmered and billowed and wavered before congealing into the form of a human woman. A giantess, whose head brushed the ceiling of the room, but with a human face.
Long, tangled, matted locks cascaded around her shoulders, nearly to the floor, writhing so Nadezda thought them serpents. Her fingers were talons, gnarled claws with large, knotty joints. Her lips slavered and the teeth, what few Nadezda could glimpse, seemed razor sharp. Warts and wrinkles filled her sagging skin and the tattered remnants of what might have once been a beautiful dark blue gown hung about her arms and torso, covering her feet though allowing one pendulous breast to hang loose. Hatred burned cold in the dark eyes that confronted Nadezda. Lilith roared in fury, a sound unlike anything Nadezda had ever heard.
The image of the giantess shimmered in the candlelight and its form became blurry and indistinct, colors running and shifting, pooling and separating as the hideous figure became a lovely, gracious beauty arrayed in splendid skirts and jewels. Her hair, tumbling about her shoulders, was now clean and brushed. Her fingers, though long, were graceful and her skin taut with youth. Her breasts, hidden behind a silken shawl with fringe that swayed and danced with her every movement, were large and seemed brimming with milk. Lilith laughed and her voice was like the music of the stars at dusk or the flutter of a butterfly on a sunlit summer afternoon. Only the cold hatred in her eyes revealed that this fair maiden was the same woman who had stood before Nadezda as a hag but minutes ago.
“What want you with the likes of me?” Lilith asked Nadezda. More than a question but less than a demand, the voice sparkled in Nadezda’s ears like a crystal goblet reflecting sunlight, the prism breaking the streaming light into a rainbow of one thousand sparkling colors.
“What want I?” Nadezda repeated, her own voice sounding rough and course in her ears. “I want the knowledge you possess, Lilith. And a promise that you will depart from Prague tonight, never to return.”
Lilith smiled, obviously amused that a housewife like Nadezda seemed to think that she was in a position to demand such things. “Depart, never to return? Why should I make such a promise at all, much less to you?” Lilith laughed again, the lilt of her voice breaking like waves on the shore, the memory of each note lingering like traces of sea foam among the stones of the shore.
“No. To these three.” Nadezda knew she sounded cold and harsh. She gestured with the Candlemas candle to the three angelic forms who each took a step closer to their demonic prey. “If you do not agree to depart from Prague when I am done with you, promising never to return, then I shall give you over to the angels to bind you in whatever shackles they see fit until the Day of Doom.”
Lilith considered her situation and thought aloud. “If there were a mirror here, deluded child, then it would be a simple matter to flee through the silver-backed glass into the wild region I call home and simply wait there until these three tire of their vigil.” Lilith took a step back from the Candlemas flame. “Ah, you know not as much as you think. I see from your face that no one told you mirrors serve as gateways for such as me?” She laughed again, her lilting, gracious voice like the most hauntingly beautiful music Orpheus ever played.
Lilith took another step to her left and Nadezda nervously thrust the candle in her hand in that direction, spilling drops of hot wax on the floor. Lilith looked at her with pity and resumed her musings.
“However, there are no mirrors here. Alas. But there is an amulet, an amulet of such power that I have not seen in these many long, long years. There are the angels, the three that have dogged my steps far longer than any memory other than my own can recall. There is that candle in your hand, the one you thrust about so clumsily, like an earthly sword of earthly metal while hoping to cut through ethereal spirit.” Lilith walked about in a small circle, glancing and gesturing at each object in turn as she mentioned them, for Nadezda’s benefit, as if the mortal woman needed such assistance.
“Any one of these angels, let alone all three of them together, would be swift enough to block my escape should I attempt to slip through a window or the door,” Lilith admitted, her back to Nadezda. “I cannot touch the child who wears the amulet. You possess that candle, which you still wave and thrust and parry, but which can do more damage than even you realize, foolish wench.”
Nadezda smiled within herself, glad that though she had overlooked the possibility of Lilith making her escape through a mirror (“Why did not the rabbi warn me?” she fretted), the candle she had brought from Mass that morning was more destructive in Lilith’s estimation than Nadezda knew.
“So, you win, mortal woman. You have conquered me, the great Lilith… for now.” Lilith turned around to face Nadezda once more. “What is this knowledge that you seek? What do you, such a pitiful and small creature, hope to learn from one so great as I that you could ever use to your benefit?”
Nadezda knew that she had to consider her words carefully, lest Lilith find a way to lie without giving an answer. Nadezda took a deep breath and swallowed. “Lilith, were you summoned here by Fen’ka’s curse? Did Fen’ka’s curse and Svetovit’s aid bring you here?”
Lilith nodded in admiration. “Clever wench. So quickly you discerned the means of my coming? Yes, the cries of the poor woman Fen’ka reached my ears as she burned but I was frustrated in coming to her aid. The great one, Svetovit, who was once worshipped on the hill, he it was who opened the doors for me at last and welcomed me here to aid him in the fulfillment of Fen’ka’s dying words.”
So! She had guessed correctly! If she had been correct about that, perhaps she had also been correct in her estimation of the other strange occurrences in Prague since that autumn afternoon. Nadezda asked her next question.
“Then, Lilith, have Fen’ka’s dying words—the curse she called out over the city as she was burned—caused all these deaths and hauntings and disappearances since then? Is she responsible for them or are they coincidences and accidents?”
Lilith placed a finger alongside her elegant lips as she thought. She took a small step towards a window and one of the angels—which one? Senoi, Sansenoi, or Samangeloph?—was instantly there, blocking her way. She laughed her sweet, gentle laugh and stepped back into the center of the room.
“Has Fen’ka directed all these—what did you call them?—all these deaths and hauntings and disappearances? That is dif
ficult to say.” She took her finger away from her lips.
With her hand nervously shaking and spilling more wax about the room, Nadezda thrust the candle she wielded closer to Lilith. “Do not toy with me, Lilith,” she warned.
“I toy not!” Lilith threw up her hands in protest, her voice filled with dismay. “Deluded simpleton, what I say is the simple truth. The web of the world’s fate is far more complex than you realize, mortal girl, and what seems to you the cause of an event may or may not have anything to do with it. What I can say to you is that Fen’ka’s words, though perhaps not responsible in the way that you would like to think them, have lain behind all these events and steered their course.” Lilith thought carefully what else to say and then added, “They would not have come to pass without her words and without Svetovit, her champion, coming to her aid to make it so.”
“Just as I thought!” exclaimed Nadezda. “She is behind it all, she and Svetovit! But the curse has taken a long time in working itself out.” Nadezda wondered how much of this she needed to explain to Lilith or how much Lilith even cared to know.
“But that is all behind us, now.” Nadezda turned her thoughts from Svetovit and his conniving with Fen’ka to bring ruin to Prague and relished her ability to see their wicked, monstrous hands behind the fates and actions of her fellow citizens and residents. “Now all that matters is that Prague be saved,” Nadezda announced. “Lilith, what is the necessary key to the fulfillment of the curse? What must happen before Svetovit is free to wreak his vengeance on Prague? How do I take control of the curse and rewrite its ending?”
Lilith stared at her as if she were a madwoman who claimed acquaintance with the king. Then she burst into laughter, doubling over.
Nadezda stared at Lilith’s hilarity with confusion. The angels stood at attention, unwavering in their vigil. Not a sound came from Milos or Petr, though Nadezda could still make out the calm and steady snoring of Vavrinec. The presence of the angels had apparently blocked any sound from reaching the sleepers.
At last Lilith stood erect and composed herself, spreading her palms across her skirts. “Clever fool, but not nearly clever enough! What is the key to the final consummation of the curse? What must you do to seize control of Fen’ka’s words and rewrite their ending?” Looking directly into Nadezda’s eyes, she said, “You have possessed the key to the curse within this house and been able to rewrite its ending since the day it was pronounced.”
Eight of Cups
(Tuesday, August 13, 2002)
G
eorge waited for Magdalena to set out on the mission he had assigned her and then made his way down to the lobby. At the front desk, he saw that another clerk was on duty, neither the bored man he had asked to arrange the date with the prostitute nor the younger man he had asked for a candle. He asked this clerk, “Excuse me, but is it possible to buy a live chicken or rooster in Prague?”
The clerk stared at him in surprise. “Ah, live chickens or… roosters, sir? May I ask why?”
George chuckled. “Yes, of course,” he told the young man. “One of the reasons I came to Prague was to consult with the Charles University faculty about both poultry farming and the role of roosters in Bohemian folktales. Since I am unable to contact the faculty across the river, given the flooding, I was hoping to speak with someone in the business.”
The clerk nodded. “I see, sir.” He did not seem convinced. “Perhaps in the countryside, in one of the smaller towns or villages,” he suggested.
“I realize there are many other things that might require your attention,” George continued, “but it is vital to my research. I really must discover if there is an establishment in Prague which sells live roosters. I am especially interested in speaking to someone who has a black rooster for sale.”
“Well, sir, as you say… there is quite a situation developing,” the clerk responded, unable to stop his upper lip from wrinkling in disdain. “It is not really possible for us to locate such an establishment at present.”
George rested one elbow on the front desk and leaned toward the clerk. “I understand,” he repeated gently. Dropping his voice to a conspiratorial hush, he continued, “But it would be worth your time and effort to make a few phone calls, in any case.” He slid several crisply folded bills of American currency across the desk.
Theo dropped off into a mild stupor shortly after the doctor departed, the medication helping him to rest as the doctor had promised. Late in the afternoon he stirred.
“Where am I?” he asked, rubbing his eyes. “What am I doing here?” He looked around, confused. “Why am I sleeping in the lobby?”
The full force of the pain in his legs rushed into his consciousness, knocking his head back as if punched. “No,” he gasped. “George! This must be George’s doing! I must get up! I must!” He struggled to swing his legs off the couch to the floor.
“No, no, sir!” Another clerk was on duty at the desk but had been informed of what had happened that morning. “Your medication, sir! You must take your medication! Doctor’s orders!” The clerk got two of the pills from the bottle and into Theo’s mouth as bellhops converged to hold his legs still and replace them on the sofa.
“No, you don’t understand! The flood!” Theo protested.
“Yes, precisely, sir. The flood. You must stay here and rest,” the clerk repeated the instructions he had been given.
Theo realized that further protest would get him nowhere. He relaxed, giving himself over to the drug-induced calm sweeping through him.
The eighty-one members of the Senate of the Parliament of the Czech Republic were meeting in their usual chambers, the Wallenstein Palace along the river in the Little Town at the bottom of the castle hill.
Orders were issued that afternoon to empty the ground floor of the palace. An impromptu emergency electrical system was set up to guarantee an ongoing source of lights within the building in case the rising water shorted out the city’s power grid. The gardens were ordered closed and sandbags piled along the bottom of the gates in an attempt to keep the water at bay.
Victoria followed a long struggle towards consciousness and realized she was wrapped in a light blanket and propped in a chair in an alcove of a strange hotel lobby. Slowly, she focused her eyes and understood what she was looking at. It was Sean, wrapped in a similar blanket, sitting in a similar chair across the alcove. His head was tipped back, resting against the wall behind him. A drop of spittle hung from the corner of his mouth and he was snoring gently.
A clerk must have heard Victoria’s blanket rustling and came to check on the two patients. “How long have we been here?” Victoria wanted to know as soon as the clerk had explained to her what had happened and why the two stricken guests had not been taken to the hospital.
“It has been several hours,” the clerk told her. “We have been giving the sedatives to the gentleman consistently. But you have been sleeping soundly all this time, without sedatives.”
“George!” Victoria realized. Aloud, she asked the clerk, “I must contact his family, my friend’s family. I must go home to get the contact information.” She tried to stand and nearly collapsed. Dizziness made her head feel as if it were rotating in complete circles and nausea gripped her stomach. She cursed quietly under her breath. The clerk helped her to sit down again before she fell.
“Excuse me, miss,” the clerk warned her. “The doctor left instructions that if you tried to move again too quickly, you might become agitated and should swallow these.” He gave her two tablets and a glass of water, standing guard over her until she swallowed them. The alcove rotated and grew dim, and the realization that George had probably stricken all of them in one way or another clouded over any other thought she might have had. In seconds, she was sound asleep.
In the north of Prague, the large, expansive city zoo sat in one of the city’s most vulnerable positions next to the river.
“The worst flood in nearly twenty years is headed straight at us!” The news reports swept th
rough the zoo. Veterinarians and zoologists and staff mobilized at once to implement an evacuation plan. A giant tortoise lumbered its way to safety with the assistance of the staff and in a matter of hours, hundreds of other animals were moved to safer quarters.
Responding to the requests of the director, many staff members volunteered to spend the night in the zoo. They kept vigil as the water rose, alert to see what else the impending disaster might require them to do to save the other animals.
Late that afternoon, the phone rang in George’s hotel room. He answered it and heard the clerk’s voice from the front desk. “It took a great deal of time and many phone calls, but I was able to obtain the information you requested, sir. There is an establishment such as the one you asked about in the area of Prague known as Ďáblice. It is, unfortunately, unreachable at present on the public transport system, because of the flooding, but you may be able to reach it by taxi, which the hotel—of course—will be happy to arrange for you. The proprietor regrets that he is not able to come into the Little Town to meet you but he will be expecting your arrival sometime tomorrow, if that is convenient.”
“Wonderful!” George exclaimed. “That will be very convenient! Yes, please book the taxi for me!” He copied down the address of the establishment and the name of the proprietor, which the clerk carefully spelled out for him.
Dmitri and Sophia lay together on the hotel bed throughout the afternoon and evening. Dmitri could not bear to move, each tiny shift of his position unleashing new rounds of agony in his temples and across his forehead. The light that slipped into their room from the window burned his eyes whenever he tried to open them and the sound of Sophia rushing to the toilet, driven by the nausea that held her in as relentless a grip as the headache held him, was nearly intolerable.
In one brief moment of respite, he whispered to his wife, “This is George’s doing. I know it.”
Come Hell or High Water: The Complete Trilogy Page 107