“CERN?” That was a bombshell. “Why would CERN care about any of this?”
“I would not think they do. What I would, however, venture is that their leader is one of CERN’s physicists. He or she is using one of their secure servers for the group,” he extrapolated.
“Doctor—get to Marseille immediately. I am going to have someone charter a plane for you. I need you here tomorrow night to talk to people. Have your driver take you to the nearest pilot and airfield. Call the number I text you about financing it. Our pockets are deep, so do not fear on our account.”
“Miss Theroux,” he reverted to addressing me by my surname. I thought it was because he was nervous. “Will I receive some answers of my own, as well?”
“Of course,” I consoled him. “Jim—you’re going to get answers, But I don’t think you’re going to be happy about them.”
I thought I heard a slight chuckle before he said, “I think I might, actually. I think I might.” With that, we hung up. I texted him Victoria’s number and made a quick visit to her room to bring her up to speed.
I awoke with a text the next morning from Victoria: On his way.
Chapter 23
“If I had to guess,” I answered Shiva‘s question, “I would think that the delay in my coming to Gavin indicates that I am taking my time with them. I do not think that means they believe you all are involved; they would need other intelligence for that.” Shiva, the Hindu deity of destruction, was impeccably dressed and was plying me with questions of strategy. Around the private room at La Table de L’Olivier, a total of 10 deities had answered Athena’s call to arms, including Diomedes. In only 24 hours, the spellcraft was proving to be much more powerful than I would have imagined: he looked older than I, but maybe only by a decade. Athena believed this was because of my talent, but also that my magic was more potent due to being closer in proximity to the well. She did not explain her reasoning.
“So, you think they know you are here and that they intend to draw you out by some means?” Zeus, despite looking an aged lothario from a beer commercial, maintained his sharp wit, and his joviality. In fact—he preferred to be addressed by Jove, an old Roman form of his name. Zeus, in terms of etymology, meant god, and going by that sole moniker was something another deity seemed to have a monopoly on and he sought to distance himself from. Earlier that day, he explained this to me. A few thousand years after his own birth from the Well and he realized just how presumptuous that was.
“Undoubtedly,” Athena answered her father. “Marseille is too large a city to comb the area. Their numbers are much larger, yet we haven’t found them either.”
Shred sat next to me, content in his silence, eying a new guitar picked up that day.
He had penned a note earlier, indicating that his lack of vocals, spawned an instrumental renaissance within him. As it was electric, I wondered what good he could do with it at the moment.
Joy sat on my other side and looked to each deity speaking, soaking in everything they had to say, just as distracted by the gravitas sitting at the table as I was. Dr. Valentine remained slack-jawed since initial introductions, but kept some semblance of composure, to his credit. Valentine played the wide-eyed child once more, his face was beaming with a million questions he wanted to ask. Maybe his worldview always allowed for the hidden strangeness gathered there. Or, as a historian, maybe he salivated at the idea that history in its near entirety could be revealed to him with the collective knowledge presented at that table.
“They need something to get me in the open,” I put forth. “They know I save people…”
The death-goddess, Kali, snickered, “Jesus saves. So does Grey Theroux!” Kali snickered and raised her wineglass in my direction. I nodded an acknowledgement. Jesus was too important to worry about rEvolve, Jove told me. That was what began our other conversation. Jove concluded by saying that Jesus did not realize that once the other gods and goddesses were out of the way, they would come for him, too.
“Would they try injuring people in public?” Joy asked, and then questioned again, “And how would they even know she were near?”
“They won’t,” bellowed Thor. “They will assuredly attempt some other stratagem.” Thor appeared to be in fantastic shape, comparatively. Athena and Victoria, of course looked great, but they looked passed their prime. Thor was right there with them. I thought about the Old Norse word weordhscipe—it is that word from which we get the English word, worship. Historically speaking, it was first applied to the worship of Thor.
These were the last of them, I thought, not for the first time feeling that I was a child sitting at the adult table. These 10 gods were likely close the only ones capable of mounting an offense against rEvolve. The world’s gods were an endangered species already. The rest of them languished in whatever corner of the earth, biding their time in stark obscurity.
Athena cleared her throat, “While Ms. Theroux divined that they took Mr. Moniz here to Marseille, they will very soon take him to Cevennes, where the coordinates are. That is the only logical conclusion, the only way to draw Ms. Theroux into where they need her.”
“Then we lose the tactical advantage.” Diomedes did not drink wine like most of the others. Like Thor, he kept a pint of dark amber beer locked in his hand. “But these are not warriors. From what Dr. Valentine tells us, these men are scientists, journalists, former men of the cloth. While it would be unwise to discount any kind of military training, they will not be trained to withstand an assault.”
Thor scoffed, “There are only 10 of us, plus these two magoi. Our best course of action is to abandon Mr. Moniz and concentrate our efforts on regaining the Sucikhata.”
“Your reason is sound, sir. Your humanity is not.” Ganesh, one of the other representatives of the Hindu faith in the room, expressed this.
Thor harrumphed sulkily. “Why should humanity be of any consequence to us?"
“Look how far humanity has gotten,” Dr. Valentine dared to say. Everyone looked at him. Their looks were not derisive or dismissive, rather they were trying to measure him up. Meanwhile, I was impressed with his fortitude in correcting a god.
“He is correct,” Mercury spoke now, “humanity has come so far. But this movement by rEvolve is antithetical to the progress humanity has made: there is no true progress if it is forced.”
I had much to add to that statement, but I could not be trusted to be objective, so I remained silent.
“It stands to reason that if this group of humans succeeds, so much of what their kind has accomplished will be tainted; the progress made afterwards would be built on blood,” this was Krishna now.
“That is naïve. Humanity’s progress is entirely built on blood! This is no different!” Kali charged, leveling her dark eyes at me in an almost predatory gesture.
The table erupted into argument and shouting. Dr. Valentine threw his hands up and excused himself to smoke his pipe outside. Shred simply grabbed his new guitar and left. Joy and I remained to witness the tumult. All the gods, all the heavens, all the hells, are within you. If only Joseph Campbell could see us now.
When they all had vented their frustrations, I felt safe enough to chime in, “It does not matter if you accompany me or not. My friends will. I have no doubts whatsoever that some of you will too. We will rescue Gavin. While rEvolve is busy setting the trap for me at Cevennes, there is no way that Von Ranke remains there. According to Jim, we can expect over a hundred of them, maybe significantly more. Von Ranke does not need to even be present. Those camped in the park are likely there to ensnare me and call him. Von Ranke is still here or he is staying in a small town near Cevennes. There is spellcraft to discern where. All we need is to find something that belongs to him.”
“We know where he works,” Joy observed shrewdly.
“I’ll go.” Victoria stood up, setting the napkin from her lap upon the table. “To Geneva. At once.”
“I should like to come along, if you don’t mind,” Valentine volunteered him
self. To what end, I could not be sure. Though the conversation along the way was likely enough.
With that, the gods and goddesses gathered around and divvied up other responsibilities, should they choose to accept them. The plan of attack fell to Athena, as it should. She would hold a sort of war-council when we met the next evening, allowing for the gods to either leave Marseille behind, or get behind us.
The following morning, we caught up with Shred at the aptly named—in English, mind you—Guitar Shop, where Shred was in the midst of purchasing six amplifiers with cabinets, a second guitar, four sets of strings, a soundboard, four effects pedals, microphones and a keyboard. I asked him about drums, but he said he could use his new tablet and the keyboard to loop the sounds he needed. Our very own former 1980’s metal god had come so far.
He hired two taxis and loaded them down with equipment to take them back to the hotel. He immediately set up a small recording studio in his suite. He needed Joy to record some lyrical parts for whatever he was planning and they sequestered themselves inside his room so he could have her sing some parts he could record and mix into his keyboard. I wrote out my own spells to dampen sound around his suite, so the noise complaints would be minimal.
I went out on my own to find more darts for my tranquilizer gun. I wondered what the other gods had in the way of offensive weapons—could Jove and Thor fling lightning bolts? Would Kali fight fearsomely? Would Krishna fight at all? Athena had much to iron out before this evening. I lost track of time. I wished I could take a quick trip back to Springfield to my vault, as there were certainly some scrolls I wanted to study, but once I got the chance to commence writing my craft, I would be as prepared as I was going to get—obscure knowledge aside. There was also a new possibility: what if my vault’s collection wasn’t all that extensive? Could there be more left of logomancy, of other magic in the world yet to be found or rediscovered?
Back at La Table de L’Olivier, Victoria and Dr. Valentine had returned. Victoria updated us that Van Ranke’s flat was under guard or surveillance, but a car that belonged to him was parked outside. In its glove compartment, it contained his vehicle registration. This personal belonging was what they offered me to perform my spell. In the hierarchy of such spells, something with someone’s name added strength: names were a summation of a person. Now, if it were something used by the person and it was personalized—that would be one of the best possible scenarios.
Athena adjourned the meeting with little fanfare. Whatever we had to discuss was apparently shelved until we could find Von Ranke. Athena, Diomedes, Victoria, Shred, and Joy stayed behind to see me perform the divination rite. Victoria spread out a patchwork of maps that made up—in vivid detail—the entirety of Provence. I first performed the spell with Gavin’s etched sunglasses lenses. It confirmed what Athena told us about him: Gavin was near the Well’s coordinates, in a village called Florac. I had to conjecture far too much about that. While Gavin could have told them the location of the Well, that seemed altogether unlikely. That meant whatever secret’s Clio’s coin held, when Von Ranke deciphered them, it gave him the coordinates that my father had gone through such great lengths to hide. What else might the coin have revealed to him?
I marked a corner of the registration so it could point to Von Ranke’s location. It worked. At that very moment, he was in the same village as Gavin. According to my estimate, it was nearly eight miles through the wilderness to the Well. Victoria took a tablet out of her handbag and placed it on the table, with a map of Florac showing. I performed the spell again; the final time with street-view. We had an address.
“I suggest I go tonight. It’s a couple hour’s drive. The middle of the night seems the best time to go. Who’s coming with?” I looked around, asking, knowing I was asking them to expose themselves to their own mortality.
“I will,” Victoria was unequivocal.
“As will I.” Diomedes’ voice, his manner was something else entirely now—rejuvenated, authoritative. Surely it was a sign of what was happening to him physiologically.
“And I would too, though I do not think all three of us should go,” Athena demurred.
“You know I’m with you.” Joy was already vertical, a gesture that could only mean there was no way she was not coming with me.
Shred thumped at his own breast. He was in too. However, we could not all go—Athena was right about that.
“Okay,” I looked around the table, “Diomedes, you stay in to heal. The spellcraft has not fully taken hold. Athena, you have far too much to do already. Shred—you’re composing your magnum opus for this battle. You stay and finish it.”
Victoria nodded, “The three of us should leave at once.”
Victoria arranged a driver for us in the meantime. While we waited for our car, Shred took vocal samples of the three of us on his own tablet. I had no expectations as to what he was scheming, but knew it would suit the moment when it came to it.
This castle at the divined address was remarkably larger than the previous one Joy and I had visited, though it should have been—as it was a hotel. After some brief research, we found that the Chateau de Florac was a hotel with 100 rooms. I ventured to guess that it was filled entirely with members of rEvolve. One look at Victoria and I knew she was thinking the same thing I was: to take out this hotel would mean to eliminate the opposition. I prepared for this scenario back on the way to Cambridge. I was saving my most potent magic for such an occasion as this: the annihilation spell. My father confided that he had used it, but only in the rarest of circumstances, though I never learned what those circumstances were. We had many conversations about it over the years and had not known any of our kind to have used it. Still, he showed it to me one evening in the vault: it was a complex pattern meant for wiping from existence. To me, it had always seemed strange that logomancy had little on the spectrum between the every-day spells I used and this other, extreme incantation used to wipe a person from existence.
Time would not rewrite itself—that was impossible—but any trace of existence would be snuffed out in that moment. The consequences of such an act terrified me. It would take some doing and some time uninterrupted to work the spell around the castle…
But I also feared the potency of the spell. Florac was a village in a valley—who knew what the unintended effects here would be. Especially if, as Athena believed, my magic was more potent the closer I was to the Well. What if I erased everyone within proximity?
I dismissed the idea. Instead, I Sharpied cloaking spells on the three of us, making Victoria’s spell more complex, even if it need not be. We tested it out by having her walk several feet out of my spellcasting field to ensure she was just as unobtrusive as we were. More than anything, we would need our sets of eyes between us. We ensured our phones were on silent—no vibrate—and told each other not to speak vocally, but rely upon the texts. Of course, being inside a stone behemoth such as the Chateau du Florac might interfere with a signal. If that were the case, we would type on the screens and show to each other. If separated, then maintain radio silence, as it were, and meet back at the car.
Once inside the hotel, we stooped and we listened. Victoria did some typing on the computer once the attendant had stepped away. Some seconds later, a new text appeared:
Von Ranke in Suite 504. Top floor. Let’s go.
The elevators were retrofits, so could only comfortably fit four people in the best of circumstances. That made riding with a rEvovler without garnering scrutiny next to impossible. The set of stone stairs were also much older than what Joy and I had experienced in Cernay-la-Ville. While one gentleman was headed down stairs, he accidentally shoved Joy over. Thankfully, Victoria was there to catch her. Joy also made no noise, helping our cause. We finally ascended to the fifth floor. There were only four suites on this floor. I removed a Post-It from my satchel.
I listened at the door to 504 and heard nothing. The mechanism on the door was surprisingly modern, so wrote the spell and slid the folded Post-It i
nto the card reader. It flickered green and I opened the as quietly as possible.
The suite was entirely submerged in black. I looked to Joy, then Victoria, seeing if they had any advice. I thought about using the light from one of our cell phones, but instead wrote out a diminutive pattern to light my finger. It looked too much like E.T.: Extra Terrestrial, really, but it did the job as it was just enough light to not knock things over or arouse suspicion as the light it emitted was very slight.
I carefully maneuvered around the room, checked the bedroom, bathroom. It was not until I felt it was safe enough to turn on a small lamp, that I was stunned by what I beheld: a caged raven.
I swore out loud as I immediately recognized it.
Chapter 24
“Oh no.” The raven was enveloped in a large, wrought-iron cage. All along the iron strips were etchings and brandings. This cage was the one I had made for the ala I trapped in Vermont. The etchings and brandings were mine. Upon closer examination of the cage, I noticed a couple inscriptions my father must have added after I had given the ala to him.
The raven trapped inside was at least three times the size what a normal raven would be. It was darkness personified and fatter than the last time I had seen it. It snored lazily in spite of having turned on the lamp.
I looked at Victoria, who nodded.
“I know this creature.” I took a few steps closer to examine it. Victoria stepped toward and closed the gap as well. So did Joy, though she held her hand over her nose.
“Smells terrible,” Joy wheezed.
“Maybe it is because I live in a cage trapped in my own filth,” the ala spoke; even the words were essence of oily filth and was every bit as unsettling as I remembered. It sounded neither masculine nor feminine, but high and gravelly, as if it could be the member of either gender. But with a wicked smoker’s voice. “I have wondered now for years, when I might again see the magos who trapped me.” It shifted its weight—a task that took skill and discipline given its girth and the size of the cage.
Mightiest of Swords (The Inkwell Trilogy Book 1) Page 24