“The man, or woman, on the podium?”
“Was it a man? I couldn’t have said at that moment. Now I know that such a distinction is fairly meaningless among my kind, but then I had no clue.”
“A woman, then?”
“Well, this is what I’m saying. Neither one. Or maybe both. It depends on which way you’d prefer to look at it. I mean, if you’re asking if it was a man as in hu-man then the answer is really quite a bit simpler.
“Not even close.”
“Then what?” she asked.
“It was the Keeper. It was the Morrigan.”
The words left a chill in the air. It lingered for a long moment. Then Maggie spoke again, trying to absorb it all.
“I don’t understand. What was all of it for? All the pomp and circumstance?”
“The Molting,” Sean replied, almost in jest by his tone.
“What?”
Here Charybdis took up the lion’s share of the explanation. She could see that Sean was reluctant to speak further.
“It means different things to different people, I guess. To the Morrigan it is a celebration of her own greatness. To my master Argus, I suppose it is an observance of our long history. But it was not always so. Once it was a glorious affair, a paradise of pleasure, a respite for the hunted.”
“The hunted?” Maggie interrupted.
“Yes. The one moment in time when the persecuted and the damned could revel free of their oppressors, free of the fear that followed them through every other day of their lives. Free, for a short while, anyway,” Charybdis answered.
“The damned?” Maggie asked, still not quite following.
“Indeed. Despite what the current appearance may suggest, before you stand two changelings. And near this place there are gathered hundreds more of us, revealed this night in all our glory as we could never be to the outside world.”
“Where do they, you come from?” she asked.
Sean shrugged. It was a question he himself had never much cared about. Charybdis nodded, however. She knew.
“Everywhere. We are born, as you were, of human parents. But we are not human, not by any ordinary measure, anyway. For thousands of years, as long as there have been people, so have we been.”
“I’ve never heard of such a thing,” Maggie protested.
“And yet here we stand,” came the simple, dismissive answer from Sean.
“But how could … ?”
“How could no one know of us?” Charybdis said, anticipating her next query.
“Right.”
“The humans knew us, once. That memory lives on in their stories, their folklore. Have you ever read the tale of Daphne, the woodland girl who was pursued by Apollo and transformed into a laurel tree? Or perhaps Medusa, the beauty who offended Poseidon and grew snakes from her crown? The tales are many, and not just from the Greeks and the Romans. Tales of our kind come down from every people: the Native folk of America, the varied tribes of Africa, the Norse, the Chinese, and the Celts.”
“So what happened? Obviously, you’re still here. How did you, how did all of this … ?”
“Become folklore?” Charybdis said.
Maggie nodded.
Charybdis sighed, suddenly a little sadder as she spoke. “Times changed. People changed. One superstition died and another rose up to take its place. In the dying days of the Roman Empire, the Christians saw us as devils. They massacred our covens, killed our leader and called us servants of Satan. Later, they demonized us as witches and werewolves and vampires. Where we had once been honored, we became hunted. In the Islamic world it was much the same, we were seen as abominations, and driven underground, forced to hide our true selves in order to survive.
“And survive we have, and we shall continue. That is why we have festivals such as we have here described.
“Every year in this season, we begin the change from our human-looking outer selves, back to the true beings that lurk within us. It is a dangerous time for us, a vulnerable time, and for safety’s sake many of us band together. In seclusion from the outside world, often at safe houses called Havens, we cocoon, and undergo the molting. It is then that our true forms emerge.
“Once together, we recite tales of the old ones, so that we may never forget. We induct all newfound shifters into our fold, as well. They shed their human name and take on a name from the rolls of the ancients. That is how I became known as Charybdis.”
“Then?” Maggie asked.
“As I told you, we celebrate,” Sean broke in.
“But what exactly are you celebrating?”
“Life,” Charybdis said.
“Life?” she asked.
“For us it is often difficult, and fragile. Every time we change, we know that our new form may be frail, or worse,” Charybdis answered. “After we emerge, we remain in our true form for a period of days, even weeks. Then we grow tired, and we are forced to cocoon again. When we emerge the second time, we have grown into a new body. Usually different than what we have been before. For most of us, in fact, the change is totally random. We mutate into a wholly new shape, and remain that way until the next molting season.
“Some of us emerge from the cocoon in aged bodies, some as little children, some as animals. We have no control over it, so we celebrate living while we can. Every year there are those who are not strong enough to survive on their own until the next season.”
“So that’s how it goes. We read, we have a party and we change,” Sean said.
“We molt, yes. We cocoon and regenerate, and after several days, we are born anew. It is the most dangerous time for us, for if we are discovered in that vulnerable state, we are defenseless,” Charybdis followed-up. “But I must tell you, the feasts are truly inspiring, for that reason alone. Debauchery. Hedonism. Whatever you’d like to call it. Drinking, sex, opium, hashish, and other drugs. We indulge in everything that can provide pleasure. Because every changeling knows that it could be her last night alive.”
Sean finally elected to offer something other than sarcasm.
“Once every seven years,” he began, “there is a gathering of all the changelings the world over. At that time, we are all drawn to the Keeper, and we join her in one great, bacchanalian festival. A renewal for the community, just as for the person. That is what brought me to St. Petersburg in 1918. And that is what has drawn Charybdis and the rest of our kind here to New York now.”
“Drawn to this Morrigan?” Maggie said.
“Yes. The Keeper. The guardian of the scrolls and the protector of the lore. She is our queen, and one of the most ancient of us, besides. She took the mantle in the year 1587.”
“She’s four hundred years old?”
“Unlike humans, we completely regenerate our bodies every year. If kept free from harm, sickness or violence, we can live almost forever.”
“Who’s the oldest of you?”
“That would be Argus. He is the only one left who saw that bygone age when we were honored, rather than cursed. Some say he seeks to restore it. But the Morrigan will not do as he wishes.”
“But why do you need a queen?” Maggie asked.
“We don’t. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell them for thirty years,” Sean said.
Charybdis ignored him.
“The Keeper is not truly a queen, or a king. The Keeper is a very special being. A changeling of rare ability—what we call a trickster—from the stories of the ancients.”
“I’ve heard that word before, in your story, Sean,” Maggie said, turning toward him.
He paid her comment no attention, but Charybdis kept talking.
“Among us it refers to a changeling who is liberated from the bonds of ordinary molting cycles. One who can mutate spontaneously, change form at will, into whatever he or she wishes. One who does not require the cocoon to regenerate.
“Since ancient times, the Keeper has always been a trickster. Not only the watcher of our lore, the Keeper is our protector. The Keeper stands gua
rd while the lot of us are in hibernation to insure that our race will live on.”
“Wait, Sean?” Maggie stammered, suddenly understanding, though she wasn’t yet certain if she’d really gotten it all. “Sean is a trickster?”
“He is,” Charybdis said, looking over at the dejected sight of him.
“And the Morrigan is too,” Maggie said.
“The Morrigan believes that Sean is a threat to her. She believes that Sean is the one we call Lucifer, the trickster spoken of in the prophecies of Nestor. In ancient times he was our greatest king, the greatest of all changelings. The heirs of Constantine slew him, smearing his name with the taint of deceiver for all time.
“But it was written that Lucifer will return one day. He will come out of the west. He will seize power, and he will lead our kind back to their rightful place of honor among mankind. He will return us to the light.”
“Sean?” Maggie said, turning to him, still sitting quietly, almost morose by his expression. He did not answer.
“He refuses to accept that he is Lucifer,” Charybdis explained, somewhat pedantically. “My master Argus first told him of the prophecy in Prague, many years ago. He attempted to tutor him, to instruct him in how to become a leader. But Sean rejected the idea. And despite our best efforts, he rejects it still.”
“So why don’t you just get rid of this Morrigan? Why can’t someone else kill her?”
“Someone else could, if they caught her at just the right moment, but such moments are rare. A trickster can mutate his flesh at a moment’s notice. One who knows you’re coming can avoid almost anything. Swords, even bullets. The trick, so to speak, is to catch one when they don’t expect it. Then they’re just as vulnerable as you or me.”
“As happened to me a few days back, when you first saw me,” Sean said. “The Morrigan’s agents surprised me. I was shot before I had the chance to change. Once I was wounded, my talents, so to speak, were rather compromised. I could barely manage to change form once before almost losing all my strength entirely.”
“But those moments are rare,” Charybdis said. “And as Sean has now proven, it is exceedingly difficult to kill a trickster, even if you do get them when they don’t expect it. But another trickster, well that’s a different story altogether.”
She turned back to Sean. He still seemed completely uninterested.
“Why don’t you do something Sean? Why would you not want to help your own people?” she asked.
Sean stood up then, and he stepped very slowly over toward Maggie. He ignored Charybdis. After a long, pregnant moment, he was back in the half-light, his face very near to Maggie’s.
“I am not Lucifer,” he said, out of breath as though he had repeated the same thing a thousand times before.
“But how do you know, if everything else fits and … ?” she began, but he did not allow her to finish.
“Do you want to know how I know? I’ll tell you. Because I’m no one. I’m not the Sean that you once knew. I’m not the Vince that I pretended to be. I’m not anyone.”
Maggie stared back. She had nothing to say. His gaze was so weary, so empty.
“When you change so much, so often, for so long, you lose sight of what you were before. I’ve been a thousand different things, people, animals, even. And I can’t figure out anymore if there’s a little bit of all of them in me, or if there really is no me at all.”
“What are you talking about? With the power you have? I’ve seen it myself. You can be anything. You can be anyone to anybody,” she replied, astonished at his reticence.
“No. I can pretend to be anything,” Sean said, stepping back into the shadows. “But none of it is ever real. I’m not even me anymore, and if I’m not real, then what’s left?”
She just stared blankly.
“Nothing. That’s the answer,” he replied. “Nothing.”
BOOK IV
“Prophecies and Other Vagaries”
THIRTY-NINE
THEY WALKED ON IN NEAR SILENCE FOR SEVERAL MORE hours. It was likely drawing close to midnight, though none of them had a watch. Charybdis seemed to know the abandoned tunnels at least as well as Arachne. Her path was determined and as heedless of the squealing rodents they disturbed at one turn and the warmed-over stink of rotting, besotted sewage they slogged through at the next.
Finally, with Maggie fading in and out of consciousness, they came to a place the trickster recognized. It was the tunnel Arachne had led him to several days before. Abandoned subway construction interrupted by a new corridor, torn out of the dirt and stone by hand.
“You’ve led us right back to Argus. To his lair,” Sean said.
Charybdis stopped and turned. There wasn’t much light, but Sean could see her eyes.
“She wished to see after your friend Vince, did she not?” the changeling said.
Sean looked down at Maggie, held fast against his chest as he walked. He knew that was what she wanted.
“In any case, where else could we have gone? We need a safe place to rest, and to contemplate our next move,” Charybdis continued.
Through the newly carved tunnel there was, strangely, no light. The distance wasn’t far. Charybdis was able to feel around in the darkness for the rope ladder that she knew would be suspended from the cathedral’s subterranean entrance.
She climbed up first, and opened the grate. When she turned to help her companions up the rope, however, she found that Sean did not need her aid. Only a moment after she had made her way out onto the church floor, Maggie arose through the open hole. A triad of leather-winged bats deposited her gently beside Charybdis, the three acting in perfect unison. Once she had settled herself against the edge of a pew, the bats released their grip. They flittered softly upward into the dark rafters.
Then, after a pause that seemed like several minutes under the brooding still, the animals fell from the ceiling. One after another, they tumbled to the floor as though suddenly dead. Defying chance and gravity alike, all three landed in the same place, upon an open spot on the church floor behind both Maggie and Charybdis.
At first seeming to topple into a mere pile of dead creatures, Charybdis quickly realized that the stricken animals did not fall haphazardly. They came together purposefully, like the pieces of a gruesome puzzle. Joining and interlocking into place, assembled by unseen hands, the bats molded themselves into human form even as Charybdis looked on, astonished despite her many years among the Children of Nestor.
Her initial surprise yielded to horror an instant later, though, but not from anything that Sean did. It was when she looked around to see what had become of the cathedral.
The church was smoldering, and dark. No torches burned. The braziers that had rested along the pews were toppled, their coals spilled. Flat moonbeams poked like swords through the ceiling, revealing a mess of ash and blood spread across a morose tableau. At least a dozen gutted corpses punctuated the deathly mosaic.
The bodies were not human.
“Safety?” Sean said.
His bloody human shape was still fighting to emerge from the twisted conglomeration of wings and fur and pus.
“I don’t understand. When I left …” Charybdis began, shaken by the devastation.
It was silent and still for a moment longer. Soot filled their lungs with the stench of death. A scavenging fly buzzed. It was ignored.
Then came a whisper. Faint words filtered out from the shadows.
“Come forward, my children. You have nothing to fear.”
It was Argus. His accent was unmistakable; the unique cadence of a being whose native tongue had been dead for more than a thousand years.
“Master?” Charybdis questioned.
“It is I, barely,” came the hoarse response.
The wounded voice was centered on the other side of the church. It staggered out from somewhere in the dark recesses, where the confessional booths had been appropriated by the nesting cocoon-makers.
Sean lifted Maggie up on the ledge of a p
ew, laying her down across the hard oak. He almost kissed her cheek, but decided it against it. Instead he ran a gentle stroke along her shoulder. She barely acknowledged the gesture. He turned back to the skinny albino.
Their eyes fighting to discriminate shadow from illusion in the dim, both he and Charybdis navigated their way through the debris. They could hear Argus breathing, wheezing really, huddled someplace in the clutter.
He was cowering beneath a pile of burned wood and broken stone. A gold-rimmed dispensary leaked a tip-tap trickle of holy water into a sanctified puddle beside him.
He was almost lost underneath the broken timber, the left side of his peculiar face a pincushion of splinters in red-seared flesh. Only one badly sliced arm was free. He waved for them when they got near enough to see it moving against the rear wall. It took a while for the pair to clear off the refuse, careful not to injure the old being any more in their attempt to free him.
“What happened here?” Charybdis asked, once they had him pried loose.
“The Morrigan exacted her final vengeance,” Argus answered. Slowly, they walked him over to where Maggie rested. His legs dangled, but he was able to shuffle along.
“I don’t understand,” Sean said.
Charybdis was clearly stunned. “Someone must have betrayed our location.”
“I’m afraid your lover Scylla was not as loyal to you as we had thought,” Argus replied.
Charybdis did not take the suggestion lightly.
“Scylla did not betray us. She gave me her word that she had joined with us. She never would have broken that bond!”
The injured, crimson-haired being did not waver, despite his obvious weakness.
“I wish it were not true. But that is the only explanation,” Argus answered. “The Morrigan’s agents told you she had died, but the Morrigan, like her namesake, has always been a master of deception. She must have killed Arachne in that hotel room, and then given our location away to the Keeper.”
“I can’t accept it,” Charybdis said.
“How exactly did this happen?” Sean questioned.
Argus was already nodding before he finished his question. He answered as though he had expected the query, or had been preparing an answer long in advance.
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