by Mark Teppo
Rene reached across the nave with his Will and grabbed the wooden bench near the wall. He jerked it toward us with magick and the bench slammed into Girard, knocking him off me. The physical connection between us was broken, and the Chorus snapped hungrily at the tender core of Girard's soul, but they couldn't break it open. They had their hooks in him, but without physical contact, it was going to take them a moment to take him apart. A moment he was going to spend fighting back.
One of the pair with a gun came around the edge of a column, and Rene was already half-turned toward him when I rolled over, whipping my arm around. Even though I had lost track of time, I hadn't stopped protecting what lay in my hand, and as I moved, I transferred the energy in the two bullets. Potential becomes kinetic, and the bullets burned in my hand as I let them go.
Girard was on one knee, shaking and spitting as his soul found purchase in his flesh again. He was aware of what flew out of my hand, and he flinched. It was all he could do.
Not that it mattered. He wasn't the target.
The gunman gurgled-it was Jerome-and his head went back, a new hole opening in his neck. Rene caught the gun as it fell from his hand-having Seen that future-but he paused as something else clattered to the floor of the chapel. He stared at the black shape on the floor, the broken shard of an object that seemed out of place, and it took him too long to realize that it was a piece of his sunglasses.
Watch our enemies. The Chorus had been more accurate than I had anticipated.
Rene turned his head in my direction and his sunglasses, the right lens shattered and broken, hung crookedly on his face. "No," he whimpered. There was blood on his cheek from where the bullet had grazed him.
The Chorus blew through him as they dove for Jerome's soul, and he shuddered at their touch, knowing it was his turn next. They hit the coruscating column of light coming off the fallen gunman, and Rene shielded his naked eye from the sudden flare of psychic light as the Chorus devoured the rising soul. I felt it almost immediately, the cells of my body singing with all the energy coming back through the perpetual contact I had with the spirits.
Girard started shouting a spell, his mouth wide. I didn't even listen to his words. They didn't matter. He wasn't going to finish.
Fire nipped at my heels.
I vibrated with the energy of the three Watchers, and I was bright, a burning light. So enlightened, so engorged with the fresh influx of their souls, I could feel the approaching edge of the psychic storm with ease. The leys were filling in again, and the tsunami wave was coming fast. The stone of the mount was starting to howl with its eagerness to be made whole again. There was so little time left before the wave hit.
In the Chapelle Notre-Dame-sous-Terre, Marielle and Antoine had gotten out of the grotto, but had run afoul of Henri and Charles. As I strode into the room, my psychic senses fully extended, a blade of raw power spitting from my stiff fingers, the Chorus read the situation. Marielle was face-down, Charles kneeling on her back, his gun pressed against her head; Antoine and Henri wrestled for the Spear. It was still attached to Antoine's silver arm, but Henri was stripping the silver away, scattering sizzling globs of liquid metal across the floor. The wards of the hole were blindingly white; they, too, were reacting to the approaching thunderclap of energy.
Charles sensed me coming-I would have been surprised if he hadn't, I was so incredibly bright-and he looked over his shoulder. His grip on his weapon tightened, as if threatening to blow Marielle's head off would stop me, and she shifted beneath him. He glanced back at her, reestablishing his grip on her neck, and his gaze fell upon her face. She had turned her head enough that she could see his face. That he could see at least one of her eyes.
She hypnotized him, spearing him with the eyeball glamour like she had done to Jerome at the airport, and I kept my gaze locked on Charles' head. Veins stood out on his neck as he tried to break free of her suggestion to hold still, but he couldn't tear himself away.
As I came abreast of them, I ripped my hand forward. The blade of force projecting from my fingers sliced through the base of his skull, severing the top of his spinal column and sheering off the back side of his head. I didn't even slow down as he made a funny noise in the back of his throat and collapsed on Marielle.
Henri registered my approach, and he raised his right hand in a gesture of protection-three fingers up, thumb and pinkie touching. His intent was strong, but it wasn't focused. His attention was split between stopping me and reducing Antoine's arm into globs of hot metal. Antoine-ever quick to take advantage of an opponent's distraction-jerked his right arm back, and Henri found himself caught. Silver flowed over his left hand, coating his knuckles, binding him to Antoine.
I hit Henri's shield hard, pouring a great deal of the energy I had taken from his brother into my fist, and the Viator's knees buckled. Henri caught himself before he stepped off the edge of the pit, but barely. Antoine shifted his weight and brought his arm-and the mess of silver, Spear, and flesh-down. Sweeping around, he pulled Henri off-balance and the Viator's only option was to fall to his knees. Antoine kept pulling, crashing to the floor as well, and both men found themselves too close to the rim of the pit.
Antoine tried to pull Henri in with him; Henri struggled to find some way to anchor himself, some way to get some leverage against Antoine.
"The key," Antoine Whispered, his voice ringing in my ears.
I was already on my way. I leaped over the struggling men, clearing the pit and landing next to the altar. On the floor, the mandala and starburst pattern of script glowed heavily in the thick air. At the center of the pattern was the twisted knob of the key, and I pulled at it, but nothing happened. The key was stuck; it wouldn't come out.
The air in the chapel gusted suddenly, a wave of pressure sweeping into the room. The stone wall behind the altar wept fat tears, beads of clear jelly that welled up from the cracks between the stones.
"You need the ring," Antoine Whispered. "The ring commands the key."
Henri snapped his head forward, smacking Antoine on the forehead. Antoine's focus wavered, and Henri pulled himself halfway free of the silver snare. The metal stretched between them, and I could see Henri's fingers straining for the shaft of the Spear. Antoine snarled and the strands of silver twisted into strands of barbed thorns, tearing at Henri's jacket and arm.
Behind them, the hall started to fill with a radiant glow as the walls reacted to the flood of energy coming back. Marielle was standing next to Charles' sprawled corpse, and she became outlined in light.
Steam rose off Henri's frame as he tried to find energy in the surrounding stone. Antoine held on, his left hand grasping for Henri's face. The light glittered off the band on his ring finger.
There wasn't any time. Not to separate them enough to get the ring from Antoine.
The Chorus filled my hand as I made a fist, and I slammed them against the stone floor. I couldn't get the key out, but maybe I didn't need to. Maybe I didn't need to worry about opening this hole ever again. If I could disrupt the magick of the key, then perhaps its purpose could be co-opted. If the key was acting as a shim that broke the integrity of the ward, then if I could shift it, the ward would seal again. I didn't need to command the key; I only needed to break it.
My knuckles shrieked as I played unstoppable force to the mandala's immovable object. My bones were the most fragile object in the collision and some of them shattered.
Antoine thrust his silver arm below the rim of the pit, hauling Henri closer to the edge. Henri slipped across the floor, and his shoulder and head passed the plane of the pit's opening.
The key broke too, and the ward snapped back. The last thing I saw was Antoine, caught in the stone floor, and Henri, his body twitching, with nothing left above his clavicle; then the storm reached ground zero and everything went white as the world imploded.
THE FOURTH WORK
". . down they fell,
Driven headlong from the pitch of Heaven, down
Into th
is deep, and in the general fall
I also; at which time this powerful key
Into my hand was given, with charge to keep
These gates forever shut, which none can pass
Without my opening."
— John Milton, Paradise Lost
XXIII
Once upon a time, in the Old Kingdom of Egypt, the sun god Ra was bitten by a serpent. Not the normal sort of serpent one finds in the garden, hidden among the trailing vines, but one with a malicious bite (a distant cousin to the sharp-toothed one who wound itself around the Tree in the Garden, in fact). When the serpent bites Ra, he is mystified as to why one of his creatures would wound him so. He kneels on the path and lifts up the tortured snake and asks, Why do you inflict yourself upon me?
The answer is, of course, an allegorical riddle: Because it is my nature. The snake knows no other way. It is narrow and perfect in its focus, and there are no diversions or branches on the path it knows. Ouroboros, the great Norse serpent, is the symbol for the re-occurring nature of the cosmological cycle, and he is drawn biting his own tail. Why? Because it is his nature, too.
Ra does not understand the snake's answer and so falls ill. Enter Isis, Osiris' wife, who-let's be honest-is the archetypal symbol for the Great Healer. She did, after all, piece together all the pieces of Osiris' body after his brother Set dismembered him and cast the pieces to every corner of the known world. Isis comes to Ra's bed where he lies stricken, and asks, What ails you, my King?
I have fallen ill, Ra says, but I do not know the cause of my sickness.
I can heal you, my Lord, but I ask a boon.
What is it that you wish? Ra replies.
I wish to know your secret name.
No man may know that secret, he says.
Isis opens the drapes of the tent in which Ra lies and shows him the darkness and sickness that has come over the land as the poison has come over him. The land, locked in the shadow of a perpetual solar eclipse.
The Land languishes, my Lord, and with it, your people, she says. Do you not wish to save them?
This poison will pass, Ra says, I will be well again.
As you wish, Isis demurs.
But he doesn't get better. The poison ruins his veins, causing him to weep internally, blood and pus flowing into his chest cavity. It ravages his lungs and he cannot breathe. It devours his stomach and he is assailed by an impossible hunger. It descends into his groin and he loses the power to create life.
Isis is summoned by her sister, Nuit, who is equally consumed with despair. Heal him, she begs Isis. Bring him back.
Isis bends over the ruins of the god, who does not recognize her as the poison has blocked the path light follows from the eyes to the brain, and whispers into his ear. I only ask a small thing, my lord. Just one tiny word.
Deep in his madness, some part of Ra hears her, and in the shrunken nut of all that remains of his glory, knows that, without Isis' aid, the light that is Ra will go out. He calls forth the only spark remaining in his heart and binds it to the last breath in his lungs. This chariot and cargo fly through the ravaged cavity of his chest, up through a hole in his throat and into his mouth. When it reaches his lips, the spark is transformed into a single word, and Isis, her ear next his lips, is the only one who hears it.
Empowered by the perfection of this word, made glorious by the presence of Ra's secret name, Isis opens her heart and releases her healing magic. Her love drives out the serpent's poison, and she builds him a new stomach, repositions his ribs, and even reaches down into his groin to warm the cold stone of his sex. She brings him back, and when he wakes, the sun is born again and the river flows once more. The Land continues on.
But she knows his secret name now. That can never be taken back.
As for who gave the serpent the secret of poison? Well, that detail may or may not be revealed by the storyteller. He may leave it up to the imagination of the audience, or he may dismiss all inquiries as to the identity of this miscreant. It does not matter, he may say. The serpent is villain enough. For many centuries, the initiates claimed it was Isis who gave the serpent its fangs.
I believe it was Ra himself.
When I opened my eyes, the light was all wrong, and I gradually realized it was soft and ambient and altogether normal. Daylight. I turned my head and discovered I was lying in bed. Next to Marielle.
I had been dreaming. A rocky spur, exposed by the wind from the vast sea of sand surrounding it, had wept water long enough for a verdant oasis to grow around this artesian upwelling. I had been sitting in the shade of palm trees, listening to Philippe tell stories. Cristobel and Lafoutain had been there too; all three were dressed in white-the reflective garb of desert nomads. Nearby, several camels had been contentedly chewing while Detective John Nicols-dressed in a similar fashion-fussed with the high saddles and bags.
I believe it was Ra. .
Marielle stirred, and her leg moved against mine beneath the covers. A tiny smile creased her lips as she turned toward me. The comforter was bunched over her, and one of my feet stuck out on my side of the bed. The bed was like a European double, smaller than it should have been, and it was easy to spill over the edge. You also slept close. I moved my hand incrementally and my fingers brushed across her bare hip.
Close enough to touch.
She was as naked as I.
Orange and yellow was starting to bloom on the curtains, sunflowers of morning light. Dawn was less than an hour away; the light through the curtains over the French doors was no longer the monochromatic shadows of Nuit's palette. A long finger of darkness slowly retreated across the wall opposite the bed.
Marielle sighed, and her leg moved further across mine, rocking my hips toward her. My hand slid off her hip, my fingertips trailing across the slope of her stomach. Like running my hand across a warm stove, tingles of heat rose up to my knuckles, which didn't hurt.
Fumbling with the comforter, I extracted my right hand from the covers. My knuckles weren't bruised, and on my palm, there was a deep line that went all the way to the base of my thumb, a trinity of burn marks, and some striations that looked like the fading print of a typographer's stamp. Half a word. . This was the room where Marielle and I had spent New Year's morning, but my hand bore incongruities, the marks of a different time. Last night-
No. That night. Not last night. The apartment in Montmartre had been five years ago. Last night I had been at the coast, in a stony chapel beneath Mont-Saint-Michel. Where I had killed men for their souls. Where the leys had come back in a tsunami-like rush of noise and energy.
Marielle's leg moved again, in a motion that wasn't unconscious. She was awake, watching me, rubbing the edge of her thigh against my leg. "Where are you?" she asked. Her voice had an oddly hollow ring, as if it was an echo.
"Right here," I said, closing my hand and sliding it back under the covers.
She flowed into my embrace, her mouth seeking mine. Breast and belly and hip followed, and we floated away beneath a sea of white damask as the morning bloomed outside. In our room outside of time, we found each other again.
Is it real? I started to ask, but the words were lost in the sudden quickening of my pulse as her hand found my cock. She raised her head so I could kiss the hollow of her throat, so I could chase the line of her clavicle with my teeth. Her legs parted as she shifted her hips, my hand sliding under her. I pulled her closer, and she squeezed my shaft as I rubbed against the smoothness of her upper thigh.
Her arm around me, she held me close, astride the combination of her fist and my cock. My foot, caught in the sheet tucked around the base of the bed, thrashed and kicked free. Finding purchase on the edge of the bed, I pushed, extending my leg. She laughed as we burrowed further into the pillows.
I eased off, snatching her wrist and pulling her hand off me. Catching her arm between our bodies so she couldn't grab me again, I ground my hips against her, feeling her respond in kind. My cock slid between her legs, and she elevated her hips, in
viting me to try again. I felt a tiny tremor run through her left leg as the joint at her hip popped, muscles both remembering and imagining another time and place. This time was easier, not so clandestine as the alcove on the boat, in not such an impromptu position. She rotated her pelvis, inviting me to find my way.
She bit my earlobe, exhaling heavily into my ear as I entered her. Does it matter? she moaned, fingers digging into my shoulders. What is real. What is not. It was like the childhood game of plucking petals off a flower. She loves me. She loves me not. She loves-riding a figure eight of motion, back and forth. From shadow to light and back again. From reality to unreality. From what could have been to what was. Back and forth, building speed. Building intensity with each shuddering passage through this central nexus of our cycle. She loves me; is it real? She loves me not; this is how the world is made.
Tell me, she whispered, and I can't answer for my mouth is pressed against her throat, bruising her with my teeth. Her legs wrapped around mine, holding me tight. Tell me-
A light exploded outside the room, the sun erupting into a super nova. Streaks flashed across the wall over the bed, and I reared up, throwing back the comforter. The curtain was flapping on its rod as the balcony door banged open. The sky was burning, a kaleidoscopic confusion of red and orange and black. A confusion of blood-tinged soap bubbles streamed into the room, obscuring the figure standing on the balcony. Outlined in fire.
Beneath me, Marielle shrieked, throwing her head back against the pillows. Her hands clawed at my chest, and her hips bucked savagely. A horrible void swam beneath her, and I was being bent at the middle, caught in the vortex. I tried to pull back, tried to stop from climaxing, but the greedy suction was too much. The pressure on my spine was too much.