“But you intuitively did exactly what was needed to reveal the nature of that zone. We know more about what we’re dealing with because of the action you took, and no one was hurt.”
“Yet.”
“That’s the kind of progress we’re depending on. It’s what this whole operation is about.”
“Proctor was the one who knew what hatched and formed down there. Not me. I was just poking in the dark.”
“Success depends on the team, Becca. Different strengths. Yours is intuition.”
“I’m not risking my sanity because my shrink—who turns out to be in bed with a spy agency—likes how I score on a Myers-Briggs test.”
“Hey…that’s not fair.”
“Maybe what’s not fair is leading me into this by trying to make it personal.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“When Jason came to Brazil, he said my father might be trapped or lost in the house. Did you tell him that would hook me?”
Nina looked down at her hands on the railing. “I thought you would want to know.”
“Did they really find his motorcycle here? Is that even true?”
“It’s true,” Brooks said from between the double doors behind them. “Give Nina a break. It was my idea to bring you in. You wanna see the bike?”
Becca nodded.
“C’mon. It’s in the barn.”
* * *
Becca hesitated at the barn door while Brooks stepped inside and turned on the lights.
“You coming?”
“Yeah. I just…” She squeezed the fingertips of one gloved hand with the other. “The last time I was here was with Mark. Before what happened to him.”
“Right.”
“He uh…decided to study the ocean because his mother drowned when he was young, and now he probably doesn’t even remember her.”
Brooks walked past what looked like a rusting antique wood lathe, swept a tarp aside and threw it atop a stack of baled hay, revealing a motorcycle Becca hadn’t seen in years but recognized at once: a late 90s Harley Davidson. Black and chrome, nothing fancy, but it still had the same studded leather saddlebags she remembered.
The walk down the hill and across the creek had provided some relief from the psychological pressure of the house. But seeing her father’s bike and knowing that he could be trapped in the folds of that awful place—shattered like Mark, whose sanity had been blasted away by revelation—brought the full weight of it crashing down on her again as if she’d never set foot outside.
And she was twelve again.
Luke had mounted this bike and lit out for the hills in the wake of his wife’s suicide, leaving his daughter in the care of his mother, despite the woman’s obsessive devotion to the study of dark arts that Becca only dimly understood to be connected to the loss they had suffered.
Why come back after all these years? Why come to a place that was effectively ground zero for the forces he’d fled?
Brooks gave Becca space and watched as she stepped forward, running her hand over the cold metal of the gas tank, the worn leather of the seat. It seemed for a moment that the barn doors had opened on another time. She was back in the garage of her grandmother’s house in Arkham, where they lived before the black tide of puberty had drowned her in hormones, grief, and depression.
Her hands moved idly over the sleek contours of the machine with an agenda of their own, and before she paused to think about what she was doing, she unbuckled the straps and was opening the nearest saddlebag.
“They photographed and logged that stuff and then put it back how it was before we brought the bike to the barn,” Brooks said. “He doesn’t seem to have left anything else behind on the property or in the house. Nothing we can identify as his, anyway, except for a few spent cigarettes.”
Becca rummaged through the sparse contents of the pouch: an oil stained rag, a pack of Marlboro Lights, a fat, white piece of worn-down sidewalk chalk, and a single Lincoln log. She sensed Brooks’ scrutiny from the corner of the barn where he stood with his hands in his pockets.
“What do you suppose the chalk is for?” Becca asked.
Brooks shifted in her peripheral vision. “You’ve seen chalk before in places like this.”
“You mean the circle and symbols we found in my Gran’s secret basement?”
“That’s one example, sure.”
“Did you find any chalk markings in the house when you first scoped it out?”
“Not inside. But there were protective symbols on the outside doors done in chalk. Probably that chalk. I think rain might have washed them off while I was bringing you back from Brazil.”
“What kind of protective symbols?”
“The Elder Sign and some Enochian letters, names of angels.”
“Sounds like the wards Maurice used to spray paint in abandoned buildings on the waterfront.”
“Yeah. Same symbols. I don’t know how much they help, but we have a team working on how to draw them with the proper incantations, as a precaution or a last resort, depending on how you want to look at it.”
“He never wanted anything to do with magic.”
“When’s the last time you saw him?”
Becca sighed. “My grandfather’s funeral. He got into a fight with Catherine and stormed off on this bike.”
“So you don’t know what he’s gotten into since then.”
She walked around the motorcycle and unbuckled the other saddlebag: empty except for a guitar pick. “Was there anything in here they didn’t put back?”
“Half a sandwich and a deck of tarot cards they’re still studying. So much for Dad shunning the occult, huh?”
Becca put the guitar pick in her pocket. Brooks didn’t stop her.
“I notice you didn’t ask about the Lincoln log,” Brooks said.
“Huh?”
“You asked why he would have a piece of chalk, but not a Lincoln log. Does it mean something to you?”
She shook her head. “No, I don’t know.”
“It just seems like such a random item to carry around. We can’t figure it out.”
“Like you said, I don’t know what he’s into. Maybe it’s just the right size for some kind of quirky motorcycle maintenance.”
Brooks laughed. “Black Magick and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance…You know, like Zen and the—”
“Yeah, I know. You’ve read that book?”
“I was married to Nina. Heard of it? Yeah. Read it? No.”
Becca closed the saddle bag, her pulse pounding. She tried to steady her breath before turning to face Brooks. Maybe she should tell him what the log meant. She might need his help. Or maybe she was finished here and should just get out.
But before she could decide, his walkie crackled. Northrup’s voice came through, charged with urgency: “Brooks, where are you? Get up here, now. Proctor’s gone rogue.”
Chapter 10
John Proctor raised the piano top board and propped it. The physicist and the unhinged biologist were still downstairs in the game room, humming melodies to each other and trying to sort out chord voicings on a portable electronic keyboard. Northrup had brought it in so they could work on the riddle of the music without the risk of the actual house piano, which derived its power as a portal from its orientation to the angles of the room in which Caleb Wade had placed it.
Proctor found the rope the girl had used to descend still tied to the piano leg. Twice her age and in half the physical condition, he doubted his strength, but he knew this might be his only chance. He had to seize it. At least he wouldn’t need to climb back up.
He put on the work gloves Brooks had given him when he’d helped to haul Becca out of the chasm, checked the snug fit of his dagger in his belt, took a deep breath, and scanned his surroundings. This might very well be his last look at the terrestrial realm. It felt strange to be traveling so light, but really, what did he need for such a journey? His sights were set on the far shore, the realm of the gods who would
provide for him, if they didn’t devour him. He was willing to take that chance, to resign his fate to the guardians of the gate. Better to be judged by them than by any earthly jury.
He hesitated, thinking of what remaining family he would be leaving behind—his sister and nephews in Iraq, to whom Northrup had promised asylum in America. Wouldn’t Leyla be justified in judging him? Wouldn’t she be right to tell his nephews that their persecution under the hardline Islamic regime could have been assuaged by their uncle, their suffering brought to an end, and the freedom to practice their faith granted by a man who had instead chosen his own liberation over theirs?
It was true he had used them as chess pieces that SPECTRA believed had the power to buy his cooperation. Even after they had tortured him and concluded that he had no part in Darius Marlowe’s cosmic terrorism, they had still required collateral before entrusting him with access to the Wade House.
And yet, even after his interrogation, he still felt no drive to initiate the foretold apocalypse. He was not a vengeful man. He had glimpsed the magnificence of the infinite, the cold glory of the void, early in life and understood that his communion with and service to the lords whose wisdom was so vast as to render his own equivalent to that of a dust mite—this attainment and no other was worthy of his striving, this relationship the only one that ultimately mattered. If his nephews studied the holy books well, they too would one day come to understand what had driven him to leave the world behind and jettison all terrestrial ties, even family, as ballast from a ship in perilous straits.
What his keepers had failed to grasp in their assessment of him was that he—like the gods he worshipped—bore no hatred in his heart for humankind; he simply found it insignificant, irrelevant.
He ran his hands over his clothes, felt the iron rod in his pocket, and realized that he was procrastinating. Was he afraid? Yes, of course he was. He would have to be mad to face this threshold without fear. He felt a pang of regret at having to leave his books behind, but it would be impractical to travel the terrain that lay ahead with a sack of tomes. It was time to accept that he had learned all he could from study in this life. The time for theory had passed. He stood on the precipice of practice.
With the harness straps adjusted to his girth and the rope trailing from his waist, he stepped around to the keyboard and raised the cover. Before taking his vows and departing for the seminary in Croatia, he had played the organ for the Starry Wisdom Church choir in his duties as attendant to the reverend in Salem.
It had been many years, and his fingers felt awkward on the keys, but he made a deliberate effort not to panic and rush. He would sound no note until he was sure of the chords.
Now or never.
He wondered again if he should have destroyed Wade’s book. He’d attempted to, but his hand had faltered at the crucial moment. It seemed a shame to desecrate the document to which he owed his impending exaltation. And what did it matter? The “scholars” on SPECTRAs payroll were fools. No one would glean what he had from Caleb Wade’s book of shadows.
Another deep breath, and on the exhalation he struck the chords, his scarred and disjointed fingers clawing at the ebony keys.
The keys to transcendence.
The air trembled and he felt a warm, humid draught pass through the cool, dusty room.
Proctor rose and gazed into the piano. Lavender light stretched across the sand below, throwing long shadows from rocks and shells. The Shore of Eternal Twilight. He sat on the edge of the piano, grasped the rope tight, and slipped off into the void. The rope surprised him, flying between his gloved hands and scorching the leather as he descended, struggling to tighten his grip. The smell of burning hide reached his nostrils, and he felt a surge of fear that soon the rope would burn through the gloves and strip the flesh from his palms.
With a jolt, the harness caught him, and he swung like a pendulum out over the breaking waves, his stomach plunging.
The ocean smelled like no earthly ocean; there was salt, yes, but it mingled in the air with other spices—dark, sweet, and dimly familiar. Over the years he had concocted incense recipes from the pages of grimoires with the intention of emulating this scent. He knew now that his efforts had missed the mark. It was a heady, intoxicating atmosphere, and breathing it he overcame his vertigo. Swinging, he fumbled with the harness, found the controlled release, and fearing that he would plummet to his death — but if death came with the mist of this forbidden ocean in his lungs, then so be it — he let out a few feet of rope, then clamped down on the feed and halted with a lurch.
He took a deep breath, assured now that he could control his descent, and gently fed the cable through the pulleys in short bursts, lowering himself to the beach.
The sound of the surf roared in his ears. He drank in the fragrant vapor, eyes closed, reveling in the moment, twisting his sandaled foot into the damp sand. He looked up at the sky, at the impossible piano shaped hole in the low clouds.
Time to move. Time to disappear before they pursued him.
He unclipped the harness and pulled it over his shoulders, then unsheathed his knife and severed the harness from the rope. Had they taken him for such a helpless fool that he couldn’t restore the sharp edge they had filed off of the blade?
He plodded up the beach and surveyed the horizon. It was true what he had read about the waterline receding over the years, as if the cosmic ocean were withdrawing from the borderland. Still, not much had changed since the days of the prophets. The rotting hull of the schooner Emma still lay on its side in the shallows, the brick and mortar walls of the labyrinth shone in shafts of gray light atop the ridge overlooking the shore. He followed the line of the crumbling wall to where it met the black gates twisting away from the marble pillars they had once been anchored to, held up now by the thorny, poisonous vines that ran rampant among the beach grass.
He wondered if he would find the gates impassable. If he did, perhaps he would climb the wall where great white dunes had massed against it like snowdrifts.
He tugged the burned gloves off and tossed them on the sand, then took the dowsing rod from the pocket of his frock coat. It felt cold in his hands and buzzed with a gentle vibration. He had felt this same vibration, deep in its core from the first time he’d held it, but it was stronger down here. The rod was made of meteoric iron; a kind of tuning fork forged from the fundamental elements of blood and starlight.
Holding the rod by its curved handles, he paced down the beach, watching the long central shaft, focusing all his efforts on clearing his mind and keeping the rod steady and perpendicular to the ground. It was heavy, and soon his arms were slicked with perspiration. The air was much warmer down here than it had been up above in January. He almost laughed at the realization that he now thought of January as a place he had left behind without an airplane. He wondered what month it was here on the twilit shore, and if there would be seasons in the spheres that lay beyond.
He would only find out if he could find the key to the innermost gate that awaited him at the heart of the labyrinth, the secret heart of the Wade House.
The dowsing rod tugged to the left, leading him up the beach like a dog on a leash. He followed its impulses, careful not to interfere until it jerked violently downward, sending a jolt of pain through his wrists. He slowed his step, turned on his axis, and loosened his grip. The rod dove again as he passed it over a horseshoe crab shell.
Anticipation brimmed in his chest as he knelt in the sand and set the dowsing rod down beside the shell. He was afraid to believe it could be this simple, afraid to hope that he wouldn’t find himself held at gunpoint, handcuffed, and hoisted back up through the hole in the sky before searching even half the terrain laid out before him.
John Proctor laid his hand on the spiky umber shell and turned it over. His breath hitched and his eyes brimmed with tears. There it was, locked in the embrace of the crab’s legs: the silver key.
He slid a finger under the filigreed grip and pulled. The desiccated crab le
gs cracked and crumbled and the key came loose in his hand, his pulse pounding against it through his clammy palm.
* * *
Brooks dropped through the hole, the sound of the cable zipping through his harness filling his ears until it was overwhelmed by the sounds of wind and surf. They had quickly fitted him with military grade equipment, the harness set for a swift, controlled descent, leaving his hands free to ready his weapon as the beach raced toward him. The second his feet hit the ground he unclipped the cable and ran for the ridge he had seen on the way down. Footprints marked the hard-packed sand near the touchdown point but disappeared in the looser sand higher up the beach. Climbing the ridge, he lost the reverend’s trail altogether in the beach grass. But there could be little doubt of his destination—the only constructed features marking the landscape in this zone: the black gate and stone wall.
Brooks bounded up the slope, struggling to step quickly against the sand collapsing around his shoes, and crested the ridge huffing.
A metallic shriek cut the air; the black iron gate was opening. And was that a black cloak fluttering in the wind before it? From this distance, Brooks couldn’t tell, nor could he take an accurate shot. And taking a wild shot would only alert Proctor that the chase was on. He ran for the gate, hoping to close the distance before he was seen.
When he reached the gate, he found it ajar. Beyond, a sand swept corridor stretched away to a marble pedestal topped with a water-filled basin. Proctor stood on the far side, gesticulating over the bowl as he chanted. Brooks raised his weapon and stalked forward, keeping the reverend’s tattooed forehead centered on his sight blade as he advanced. He supposed the man could duck and use the marble basin for cover, but there was nowhere else to hide. He was reminded of the birdbath at Allston Asylum, and his stomach fluttered. Beyond Proctor, something shimmered, like a curtain of silver fabric.
“What’s your game, John?” Brooks said. “You still trying to conjure monsters from birdbaths? That never worked for you before, why would it now? You may know the spells, but you don’t have the voice.”
Black January: A SPECTRA Files Novel Page 11