Council of Peacocks

by M Joseph Murphy

  The four of them looked at each other for some time. Their eyes darted to each other, holding a silent vote. When the tension reached a point where David felt it painful to breathe, Jessica lowered her head and said: “Whatever. Tell him.”

  Amy put a comforting hand on Jessica’s shoulder. The other girl pushed it away.

  “I’ll tell you a little story,” Bethany said. “I’ll start with how Wisdom found me. I was living in England – Liverpool, actually. Life was brilliant. Then, I made the dim-witted blunder of going with my friend Tanya to this psychic fair.

  “Any who, I got this reading from this funny-looking woman all dressed in black. Her hair was all wild-like. She looked like a bad actress trying to pretend she was a psychic. There was even a crystal ball standing on the middle of the table.

  “So I sat down in this metal chair, ungodly uncomfortable. She told me her name – can’t remember it now for the life of me – and pulled out a deck of tarot cards. She told me to shuffle them while focusing on a question. So I did. I felt this strange sort of buzzing in my head like I was getting a headache. My body went numb and my head started to sway. The woman reached over and took hold of my hands. ‘That’s good enough,’ she says. Turns out I’d been shuffling them for a couple of minutes.

  “She laid out the cards and said “I see a tall, dark man in your future’. I burst out laughing. I mean, it was such a campy thing to say. Like something out of an old Roger Corman movie or something. The psychic lady – I think her name was Sue or Mary-Sue, something like that – she just smiled like she was used to that sort of reaction. Then, quick as I can snap, she wasn’t smiling anymore. Her head flew back and I could feel this wind. It blew back her hair but didn’t touch the cards at all. Other people felt it, though. I could tell because all around me the noise just dropped off. It was actually quiet, except for the beating of my heart in my head and the words of Suzette. That was her name. Suzette.

  “‘The Dark Man will lead you into a battle against powerful demons,’ she said. ‘Many people will die. You may be one of them.’ So by this point I’m kind of getting freaked out. I’m not sure I want to stay and hear the rest of it. But I can’t seem to move my muscles to get up. The wind grew stronger and so did the buzzing in my head but I could still hear her perfectly. ‘But you are not like other people,’ she says. ‘You have more in common with the demons.’

  “Then the crystal ball shattered. Well, as soon as she stopped screaming, she pushed the money back in my hand and told me to get out. A few days later I got a letter from Wisdom.

  “You see, Wisdom can sense things. Amy was right. We don’t know everything. One thing we don’t know is exactly what he is. I mean, it is possible he’s just somebody like us, someone who has EFHBs. But sometimes I feel he is something else. I can’t put my finger on it but I don’t think he’s really human.”

  “He’s partly human,” Amy said. “But he’s partly something else, too.”

  David whistled. “Do you think he’s related to those winged things?”

  Bethany bit her fingernails for a moment then shook her head. “No. I don’t think so. I can still remember how those things felt in my head, kind of wet and slippery, like snakes in black water. Wisdom is something else. There is something very hard and very fiery about him. What I do know is what we’ve been taught in class.

  “Ms. Ryerson taught us that humans aren’t the only people on earth. Now I am not talking about UFOs or people from Mars. There are civilizations on Earth that have been here for thousands of years that do their best to keep away from mankind. They’ve gotten very good at it over the years. Partly they hide out of fear. There are not as many of them as there are of us. The bigger the world gets, the harder it is for them to hide in one sense, but in another it gets a lot easier. They can’t hide out in the woods and country graveyards anymore, so instead they hide in high-rises and sewer systems.”

  “What are you talking about?” David asked. “Vampires?”

  Jessica scoffed. “Newbie.”

  Bethany shook her head. “Not vampires. I don’t think those are real. But then again, maybe that is something else that’s being hidden from us until we’re ready. We were never told their names, only that they had an ancient civilization that thrived all over the planet 1200 years ago until their culture destroyed itself in an idea-war. Truth is, if Echo was telling the truth about how old these caves are, they were probably the ones that built them.”

  “What does that have to do with Wisdom?”

  Bethany looked into David’s eyes. “Ms. Ryerson said these people are getting tired of hiding in the shadows. They are making deals with a group of humans, some sort of cult that’s doing experiments on humans. They are planning a war. We’re being trained to stop them.”

  David put his hands on his head, scratching idly. “So is that what we are? The result of some cult doing experiments on humans?”

  Bethany looked over to Jessica.

  “Don’t look at me,” the little girl said. “You started it. You might as well finish it.”

  Bethany bit her fingernails again, speaking through her fingers. “No, we’re not that. We’re something else. Something evil.”

  David lowered his head. “Evil? As in not the good guys?”

  She nodded. “As in pretty far from the good guys. I don’t know anything more specific. Wisdom always said he would tell us before the big day, before the battles began. Seems he was a little late there.”

  David jumped off the sofa. “I’m not a monster!” He walked in the direction of the living quarters. “No matter what you say, I’m not evil!”

  When he left the room, Jessica crossed her legs and smiled.

  “I told you he wasn’t ready for it. Newbies never are.”

  Todd got up from the coffee table. “Jessica, I’m not sure I’m ready for the truth. Even after everything we’ve seen and done in the classes, it’s never easy to learn you have a little demon inside you.”

  Chapter Twelve

  David brushed past a group of teenage girls. He was barely aware of the tears streaming down his face. Teeth clenched and red-faced, he headed down a hallway lined with living quarters and looked for his room. While the mottled walls were unevenly carved out of stone, the doors and frames were constructed of polished wood. Many of the doors were open to luxurious apartments. Thick slate-grey carpet covered the dirt floor. Electric sconces shaped like nymphs supported the illusion that they were in a hotel rather than an old cave dwelling. Anomalies, young and old, gathered in small groups along the hallway. It seemed no one wanted to be alone.

  He found his assigned room halfway down the hall. He stepped inside, quickly closing the door behind him. He leaned his forehead against the cool wood until the pounding in his head stopped. Then he turned around and looked for a place to collapse.

  His quarters were luxurious. There were two dark green couches in the front room. Deep umber and rust-colored pillows were thrown in a carefully constructed chaos on the furniture. Pillows filled the corners as well. Past that was a round room with a bed twice the size of a normal king-sized mattress.

  “I’m not a monster.” The words fell out of his lips before he realized he was still thinking about that. “Bethany has to be wrong. It’s probably just genetic mutation or something.” The only problem was the evidence piling up around him. He wasn’t the only one who had hurt people. Todd had killed two people because he could not control what he was. Did that make him a monster?

  ‘No,’ he thought. ‘But I can’t pretend I’m like Todd. He killed by accident. I went out of my way to kill. Maybe not the first time, but I knew what I was doing the last two times.’

  He shook his head. That was not quite right. The second time he killed someone he didn’t really know what he was doing.

  ‘But I hoped.’ He lay down on the bed and closed his eyes.

  ***

  The second time he killed with his power was not long after the prom. People were still ree
ling from the strange explosion that had killed Ramona and Paedrag. At first, the police suspected a car bomb. They questioned David and a few others several times but soon admitted they couldn’t find any evidence of foul play.

  Many people came to him in the weeks after, offering condolences. He nodded, even cried a few occasionally. Most of the time, the tears were even real. Most of the time.

  Then he started to play with the buzzing in his head. He knew it was somehow connected to the explosion. He realized he had to control it or someone else was going to get hurt.

  That next someone was Dunstan Joyce.

  It was lunchtime.

  David sat with a few friends playing cards. He heard laughter and raised voices. The whole cafeteria turned to look over at Dunstan. He stood on top of a lunch table while two Goths in black makeup with purple hair shouted at him. Dunstan and his friends were laughing.

  “Must be going into all that gay stuff again,” David’s friend Mark said.

  David rolled his eyes. Dunstan was always going around telling anyone who would stop long enough to hear that homosexuals were going to burn in hell.

  “God,” David said. “I just wish he would shut up. Or die or something.”

  Then the laughter stopped. It was replaced by a scream. Dunstan clawed at his own throat, as if trying to scratch out whatever was in there preventing him from breathing. A flurry of people rushed to him but nothing worked. The thing was, David felt a part of his mind drift across the room, tightening around Dunstan’s throat. He couldn’t draw that part of him back. And the scary part was he didn’t really want to.

  ***

  He slept through the night and woke the next morning with a headache. He opened his eyes and shut them quickly. Even the dim, recessed lighting around the room was too much. He rolled onto his side as the nausea took hold.

  ‘Damn migraine.’ Slowly he threw off the covers and sat up. ‘No wonder, really. After all that crap yesterday, I guess my mind is going through a required meltdown.’ Keeping his eyes closed to fight dizziness, he reached out for something to steady himself. His fingers touched stone and a jolt of electricity shot up his arm. He screamed and opened his eyes.

  He was no longer in the bedroom. Instead, he was on a rooftop looking down on a city. It wasn’t a city he recognized. Figures moved below him in a rush. Unfamiliar scents streamed around him: spiced meats and flowers, perfumes and sweat. He looked above and saw nothing but darkness and dry earth.

  ‘I’m still underground,’ he thought. ‘An underground city.’

  He looked back at the people milling about the streets below and realized they were not really people at all. Tall and slender, their faces and bared arms were covered with sleek, moist scales. He’d never actually seen one before, but he knew these things, these winged beings, were Edimmu. They were far different than the savages who attacked the building in Toronto.

  These Edimmu were as civilized and refined as any city dweller of the modern age. Women carried babies in their arms. Children played in front of stores where merchants bartered in a sibilant chatter, a series of clicks and growls that was at once magical and threatening. Something flew above his head. He looked up and saw a trio of bare-chested Edimmu playing a game consisting of throwing a gold discus while flying backwards. They flew over the city, dodging taller buildings.

  Another Edimmu wearing a plain, white tunic flew from house to house with a large cloth sack draped over his back. It appeared he was the equivalent of a paperboy or mailman. He dropped parcels off at each stop. That implied that the Edimmu were not only civilized, but literate as well. Closer to him, he saw an open window leading to an apartment. He blinked slowly as his eyes fell upon two Edimmu in the middle of lovemaking. The slow kisses and gentle thrusting motions made him blush.

  Then he heard something. He realized it was the first sound he’d heard in awhile. It started as a soft ‘ting,’ like a small bell being rung or the chinking of crystals. Then, not only could he hear the sound, he could see it. He saw it ripple throughout the city. Translucent rings of light and shadow touched every subterranean corner. He looked back to the open window and the couple making love. Suddenly, he was gone from the rooftop. Now he was inside their apartment. He watched as they stopped what they were doing. They cocked their heads to the side, trying to find the source of the sound. The male Edimmu stood, wrapped a blanket around his waist and went to the window. His female partner said something to him, an incomprehensible series of clicks and hisses. The male shook his head and then turned sharply toward David and started moving. For a moment, David thought he was discovered. Then the male rushed past him, heading to a smaller room off the bedroom.

  ‘A bathroom,’ he whispered. It looked distressingly similar to bathrooms of the modern world, complete with shower, sink and toilet. All three devices were running now. Water flowed from everywhere. Hot water caused the air to mist and steamed over the wall-length mirrors that lined one of the walls. The male yelled now as he struggled to turn off the taps. The ringing sound grew louder. It filled David with a tingling sensation that started at the base of his spine and spread throughout his body.

  “Something’s coming,” he said. Even as the words left his mouth, the darkness appeared. The steam on the mirror was wiped away by an unseen hand. It created a murky hole that reflected nothing of the real world. As the hole spread further, the sound grew louder. Then, things started to flow out of the darkness, impossible shapes with horns and tentacles wielding swords. The male Edimmu screamed as one of the dark shapes slashed at it. Blood shot from the Edimmu’s throat, splattering the walls and floors. David squealed but the blood did not touch him. It flew through him, covering the rest of the room. He watched as more and more shapes streamed out of the mirror. Something killed the female and then flew out the window into the city.

  Then David was back on the rooftop. All around him, dark figures poured out of every mirror and reflective surface in sight. They slaughtered every Edimmu they found. Flying shadows, crow-like monsters the size of large dogs filled the sky. He watched as they tore the flesh from the three Edimmu playing the discus game. Silent explosions rocked the city. Flames erupted from every quarter and the scent of blood grew thick in the air. A female Edimmu ran toward David, a small baby in her arms. She screamed for help, desperation in her eyes. He reached out for her and….

  He was back in the bedroom. When he reached for the female, he had removed his hand from the wall. When he lost contact, the images disappeared instantly.

  “What the hell was that?” He lay back down in bed.

  As frightened as he was, he still was self-aware enough to realize the headache was gone.

  ***

  He left his room and followed the sound of voices to a dining area. Echo and the other Anomalies sat around large glass tables eating breakfast. He was the last to arrive. Two servants, women with dark brown skin, moved around the room. One poured coffee while the other dished out scrambled eggs. Bethany had saved him a seat near the head of the table where Echo sipped wine from a crystal glass.

  Jessica took a sip of the coffee before her. Her face twisted around her lips like she had just sucked on a lemon. “That’s gross. Do you lose your taste buds when you get older?”

  Echo smirked. “No. We just learn to appreciate different tastes. How old are you, Jessica? If memory serves me right, you would be 13, correct?”

  “I’m 12.” Jessica reached for the cup of coffee again, her face firmly set. “And a half.”

  “Of course,” Echo laughed again. “That half is very important.”

  Amy stirred her eggs with a fork. “How old are you, Echo?”

  “Amy!” Todd nearly spat out the eggs in his mouth. “You know it’s not polite to ask that kind of question.”

  “Oh please, children,” Echo said, the laugh still thick in her voice. “I’m well past worrying about my age. In fact, I’ve stopped counting. You do after awhile.”

  “You can’t be older than
Bethany.” Jessica took another sip of coffee. Once again, her face contorted but she forced herself to keep drinking. “She’s ancient.”

  “Hey!” Bethany said. She threw a napkin across the table at Jessica.

  Echo turned to Bethany. “Behave, now. To a child’s eyes you would be ancient. To me, you are just a babe. Let’s just say when I was 12 there was no such thing as Christianity and the Jews still worshipped a god and a goddess. Well, I can see from the looks on all your faces you don’t really believe me. Why should you?”

  “What are you?” Todd leaned forward, elbows on the table.

  Echo leaned back in her chair and studied Todd. “I was human, once. That changed when I was sixteen. I paid a price. You could say I sold my soul but I don’t regret the price. Not often, anyway.”

  David cleared his throat. “Is Wisdom like you? Did he sell his soul, too?”

  “If you have questions about Wisdom, ask him yourself.” Echo put down her wine. “But enough questions about me. I’m sure you have all sorts of questions about what you are.”

  “We know what we are,” Jessica said.

  “Do you?” Echo motioned for one of the servants to clear way her plate of eggs even though she’d barely touched them. “So what has Wisdom told you?”

  Amy glanced at Jessica before speaking. “Ms. Ryerson and Wisdom tell us we’re a little…evil.”

  “Evil?” Echo laughed. “Hmm. I didn’t expect that. Not from Wisdom. Listen, there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years. One person’s devil is another person's god. Literally. Have you ever heard the name Azazel? If you buy one of those pretentious books on angels, he’s listed as a demon. Yet the people in this area worshipped him as a god, represented by a black peacock. The only reason he’s seen as evil is because of a cultural battle between the Hebrews and the Yezidi. In every war I’ve seen, it’s important for morale to demonize your enemies. Make their gods into things of darkness and evil. It’s almost as if two people on different sides of the same conflict can’t possibly worship the same god.