“Servants of the Keeper surprised us. They massacred those few who remained with me. I was wounded as well, and left for dead. The Morrigan knew of my treachery, you see, and I posed a threat to her that she could no longer tolerate,” the old being said, more like a recitation than a reply.
“I never should have left,” Charybdis said.
Argus did not give her a chance to continue.
“There was nothing you could have done. The Morrigan planned to be rid of me from the start. I realize now that she did not call the Festival here merely to settle affairs with Lucifer. She did it to free herself from the leaders of all the other Havens.”
“She planned to be rid of you all along?” Charybdis asked.
“Indeed. The inhabitants of the Chaligny/Bastille Haven in Paris were mostly killed in the War, as were mine in Prague. So it was with those of our kind from Leningrad, Hong Kong, and most every other city in which we have made permanent homes. The Morrigan brought us all here to consolidate her power, to form a single community in New York, under her direct control.”
“And now she has done it,” Sean said.
“Not quite yet,” Argus answered. “You yet draw breath, and so the prophecy remains. There is still a battle to be fought.”
Sean sighed.
“I’ve told you. I want no part of it. Fight your war without me,” he said.
“Argus is right,” Charybdis continued. “This is more than just your ordeal now Sean. All of our futures are at stake. If you aid us, we all may yet succeed this night. We all may finally get what we wish.”
“What do you mean?” Sean asked.
Charybdis gritted her teeth, almost growling as her fists clenched under her robe.
“We have only one course left to us. We must destroy the Morrigan once and for all,” she said. “Perhaps Lucifer is right, and we no longer require a Keeper. Certainly not one as cruel as the Morrigan. She may have turned Scylla against us, but I will not serve her again. Tonight we will be free, and the rest of our kind with us. Or we will die in the effort.”
Sean yet seemed unmoved, stirring though the pale woman’s speech had been.
“If the Morrigan has been here, then she has your friend Vince as well,” Charybdis said, directing her words to both Maggie and Sean.
Maggie glared back at him. He knew what that look meant. The years had not dulled it at all. After a long, quiet moment, he finally melted under the glare of her dagger-blue eyes.
“We’ll need to find our way into the festival,” Sean said.
“I can lead us there, through the underground tunnels,” Argus said.
“Once inside, I’ll locate Scylla, to see after this report of her treachery,” Charybdis added, thinking out loud.
“And if she has indeed betrayed you?” Argus asked.
“Then I will kill her myself,” she replied, her voice practically devoid of emotion. “You blend in with the revelers Sean, get close to the Morrigan. We’ll cause a commotion and …”
“… and you can kill her,” Argus said, as though it were a proposition far easier than they all knew it to be.
“It’s no longer just about you, Sean … Lucifer. A few days ago you addressed our people on this very altar. You talked about freedom. If you meant what you said, then you’ll do it. Damn the prophecy if you wish, you need not replace the Morrigan. But help the rest of us be free,” Charybdis said. “Do at least that much for us, and we will ask no more of you.”
Maggie motioned for him to sit near her. He didn’t, but she spoke anyway.
“If you ever felt anything for me, then you’ll do this,” she said. “And for Vince. Don’t forget about him. You got us both into this. You owe us at least that.”
Sean was quiet again, for another lengthy stretch. It seemed that everyone in the church was looking at him, waiting for his answer.
“Okay,” was all he could offer.
FORTY
ONCE THEY PASSED BEYOND THE NEWLY CARVED TUNnels directly beneath the cathedral, it became dark and cold. The air was damp with waste-polluted water. Everything was black, but for occasional hints of moonlight that slipped in from sewer grates and manholes above.
Argus was at the lead. His gleaming red eyes reflected what little light there was in a weird crimson glow; off and on, off and on as they walked, like a scarlet lighthouse shrouded in the mist.
“The Morrigan has purchased a waterfront property for the festival. It’s accessible from these tunnels. My followers who have preceded us left markers for those who might come later,” Argus finally said, after they’d been walking for nearly an hour.
With his slinky, bluish-white fingers, he pointed out just such a milestone. A dress had been draped over a rusty outgrowth of pipes and wires. One arm of the outfit had been hoisted up at a right angle to the floor. In the murk, with only the reflected light from Argus’s scarlet eyes for illumination, it looked as though a headless ghost pointed the way.
“Fine silk, such a waste. Likely discarded by a changeling who no longer required clothing,” Argus commented.
Sean held Maggie in his arms now, carrying her through the slime. Her breathing had grown irregular. She was coughing up phlegm. She was shaking.
“Vince never smoked Parliaments,” she whispered.
It was too faint for anyone but Sean to hear.
“What?”
“Cigarettes. He hated Parliaments. Only smoked Lucky Strike, and sometimes Marlboro, or maybe Pall Mall,” she continued.
“I don’t understand,” he whispered back.
“At my apartment, Paddie offered Vince … you … a Parliament, and you smoked it. Vince never would have done that.”
Now he knew what she meant.
“I was hoping you wouldn’t really notice,” he said.
“Well I did, but I didn’t care. I wanted Vince to be back so badly. I just didn’t care. Seeing him … seeing you looking like him … it was easy to believe.”
“What can I tell you? I never quite get it exactly right.”
“What do you mean?” her reply was made almost out of reflex. She wasn’t even sure she cared anymore.
Sean answered regardless. “Getting close to the appearance of someone is actually pretty easy. I can mimic the outside without a problem, but not everything else.”
“So you’ve done this often? Impersonated other people?” she quipped.
“Most of my life, actually,” he answered, without even a hint of humor. “I’ve been hundreds of different people. I read Shakespeare at Oxford as a Scottish war vet. I took classes in Bologna as a girl I met in Florence. I studied impressionism in Marseille as a beggar I encountered in Toulouse. I even learned how to dance the waltz in Munich in a program given for retired folks. But no matter how often I do it, there are usually a few details that I miss.”
“Nobody’s perfect, huh?”
“Perfect? No, not unless you want to absorb someone.”
“Absorb?”
The thought left her momentarily aghast.
“You’ve seen it, that day with Paulie Tonsils outside of Vince’s place.”
“I only caught a glimpse, but it really shook up Vince. For a moment, I thought I saw two Paulies, but just for a second. Then he died.”
“Yeah, that’s the drawback, as you might guess. A long time ago I discovered that if I actually touch someone, come in contact with their skin, I can become them. Everything that makes them who they are. Thoughts, feelings, even the rhythm of their heart. I can absorb the whole lot; draw it out of them and into me.”
“Is that how you got better so quickly after that morning?” she asked.
“In a manner of speaking,” he answered. “I took everything Paulie had, every breath of life in him. That’s what restored me. Now I have it all in me. Every memory. Every little quirk. I can tell you everything about him.”
“Like what?” she asked.
Sean didn’t even need a second to think. The words rattled off his tongue.
>
“He hated spaghetti but not elbow macaroni. Never drank white wine. When he was twelve he killed a neighbor’s cat with a kitchen knife and buried the body in his mother’s garden on the roof of their building. Best tomatoes they ever grew that season. And he had a thing for women’s feet that I’d rather not get into.”
She was silenced. Sean laughed.
“He even convinced himself that his comb-over actually fooled people,” he joked. “I could actually become him now, if I wished. Even his wife wouldn’t know the difference.”
Maggie had no idea how to answer something so surreal. So Sean kept talking.
“The problem is, as you saw, taking all of that away from someone usually kills them. In Paulie’s case that wasn’t much of a loss.”
Suddenly the thought struck Maggie. Her head turned sharply.
“What about Vince?” she demanded.
Sean realized what she must have been thinking. He put his hand on her cheek, just for a second.
“Don’t worry, he’s fine,” he assured her. “At least he was the last time I saw him. As much as I resented him for what happened with the two of you, as much as I wanted you for myself, wanted to be rid of him, I couldn’t bring myself to do that. He was the only real friend I ever had.”
“Touching, I guess,” she replied. “So you faked it with him.”
“I faked being him, yeah. But I haven’t really known the guy for the last thirty years, so obviously I missed a few details. Animals or objects are easy, but people are complicated. It’s easy to get things wrong. Especially when you do it quickly. Truth is, as long as you get the major aspects right, most people will overlook the little things, even if they’ve known someone …”
Sean paused then, as though the words had jarred something in him.
“Sean?” she prodded.
He stopped walking, leaving both he and Maggie a few paces back from the others. For a moment, there was just the silence of the tunnel, and the constant, synchronized red flashes from the eyes of their leader.
“What’s wrong?” she whispered.
“… even if they’ve known someone for a long, long time,” he continued.
“What’s the matter?” she said.
Her teeth were chattering.
Sean didn’t answer. He remained transfixed in the dark, his gaze stuck on the rhythmic red flashes.
The next voice she heard came from a few yards away, from ahead.
“The exit is just up here,” said Charybdis, her stark white features brightened by light from above. “Argus has found the doorway to the Morrigan’s domain.”
The doors closed behind them, silent and still. Nothing penetrated the shadows. Not the rusty clang of the docks or the evening lilt of the Hudson.
It was dark, lightless aside from a single pink sparkle that seemed to flicker far, far in the distance; like a flower lost amid a starless night. Quickly the lone sparkle became two, and then four and then a full blaze of rose-colored light. Within the aura was a frame, and two behind. Silhouettes of women and men with thin, curved bodies. The figures seemed to illuminate themselves, with a reddish glow that came from nowhere but around them.
The one at the lead was cloaked, although her shroud might merely have been a trick of the shadows. Her beautiful canine face was lit only by the blush of scarlet lips. Her feral-eyes were blank, and dark as opal stones. Her crown was half hidden, either bald or lost beneath a hood of darkness that rested heavily upon it.
“The Daughters of Cerberus,” Charybdis said. “The Guardians of the Molting.”
“Will they let us pass?” Maggie asked. Her voice was hushed to a near whisper.
“They will do nothing to impede us. They are only gatekeepers, not guards. Anyone, human or changeling, is permitted to cross into the festival,” Argus said.
“But how do you keep such a thing secret?” she asked as Sean set her down beside Charybdis.
“I said that anyone may enter. If you tried to leave, then you’d see,” Sean answered, slowly edging backward from both Maggie and the others.
“Welcome to the Molting,” Argus said.
The doors beyond the Daughters of Cerberus opened, flooding the antechamber with light and smoke and noise. It was warm. The humid draft carried a sting, weighted down with the sharp odor of musk and incense.
Maggie choked when the scent assaulted her.
“Forward, quickly, if we’re to enter without attracting much attention,” Charybdis urged.
She noticed that Sean had drifted a few paces back, beside the gatekeepers. But she paid little mind to it.
“That won’t be a problem, Charybdis,” Argus said.
His tone was strange, almost hostile, but Charybdis did not have long to wonder after it. A second, very familiar voice continued the ancient one’s thought.
“You already have my attention.”
It was mellifluous, more like music than simple words. When Charybdis turned, she knew why.
“What’s going on?” Maggie asked.
She was suddenly very conscious that Sean was gone from her side.
“We’ve been tricked,” Sean said.
“Very true, very true,” Argus said, stepping to the fore. A cadre of white-robed Maenads streamed into the chamber, circling the weary travelers with a ring of pointed steel. “You have been fooled, and now the game is over.”
As he spoke, Argus sucked a huge breath into his lungs, inflating his chest in an absurdly distended fashion. When he exhaled, his entire body twisted in a way that no normal person’s could ever do, like a band of tightly woven rope uncoiling.
His skirt fell away with the torque. There was no hideous mutant nudity beneath. His lower limbs were somehow merged into one icy-white stalagmite. A delicate shimmer glazed his skin.
As they watched, horrified, his smile dissolved and his eyes fell shut. Then his head melted into the thick of his shoulders.
They would have continued staring, revolted and drawn in at the same time. But the glow of his flesh coalesced, spinning away from his chest in a sudden flare. Those who did not immediately turn away winced and shielded their eyes with their hands.
The burst of heat and flame lasted only a moment. The shadows of the entranceway quickly fell back down over them, except for one place. And that was where they all looked.
Argus was gone. Something far more beautiful, and far more terrible, stood in his place.
“Who?” Maggie said.
“Morrigan,” Sean said.
His voice was now eerily disembodied. It echoed as though spoken from a distance.
When the others turned to see why, they found not three Daughters of Cerberus lingering in the shadows, but four. Their black hoods stood out darkly against the gleaming white cloaks of the encircled Maenads.
“It is over Lucifer. I will spare no one now to end it forever,” the Morrigan said, her hands raised toward the quartet of gatekeepers, three genuine and one an imposter.
A second flare sparked from within her open palms, illuminating the dark again. The light struck the Maenad guards, igniting red flames on the edges of their blades. Without hesitation, they hacked down all four of the canine sentinels.
The savage murders took barely thirty seconds.
Maggie gasped as the four obedient women dutifully fell, none offering up so much as a yelp. Their cloaks covered over their remains when they landed, and the guards wasted no time in spearing the mantles. The Morrigan seemed to float toward them, her fingers glittering with captive lightning.
One cloak came away to reveal a bloodied, pale cadaver. A second revealed the same. Two remained. One, they all knew, was not a Daughter of Cerberus.
The Morrigan waved off her attendants. She would have the final honor for herself.
With one motion, she yanked the bloodied cloaks from both fallen watchers, and found two more corpses.
“My queen!” one of the attendants shouted.
It was a moment too late.
Fr
om behind, the first of the fallen ladies rose. Her corpse was corrupted, torn by a dozen gashes and fouled by violent, red-drooling cavities. But even as she stepped toward the Morrigan, the wounds were mending themselves in a mess of bone and blood and jagged flesh.
She was smiling through a toothless, oozing mouth.
The Morrigan nodded. She recognized a fellow trickster and opened her arms. Twin blades were growing out of the pliable shapes of her fingers. She slashed each sword in turn, but the steel passed through the risen corpse like liquid. A Maenad beside her made a third strike, a thrust. Sean’s cadaverous torso opened to accommodate the weapon, wide so that the blade cut only air.
The Morrigan recoiled, though the rest of her guards were already in motion. They charged Sean, but his body, whose features had now begun to regain their original form, was too quick.
Sean took hold of, and withdrew the Maenad’s blade from his chest. It exited as harmlessly as it had entered. The skin closed up where it had opened to allow the sword entry. With a swift hand, he slashed across a pair of the guardians. Two deformed heads tumbled to the floor, and as the rest watched helplessly, Sean vanished into the haze and the noise of the Molting.
FORTY-ONE
SWORDS AGAINST THEIR BACKS MARCHED THEM AHEAD, motivated by the Morrigan’s angry command. Behind, the doors that had once been guarded by the Daughters of Cerberus slammed shut. They were sealed off from the outside.
“Enjoy your peek into our world. Brief though it will be,” the Morrigan sneered.
As Maggie looked on, disbelieving yet, the war goddess fell backward into her own shadow. Then, just as she had cast off the physiognomy of Argus like others might discard a coat, the Morrigan shed her human aspect. A glowering black raven grew up from the midst of her remains.
It eyed Maggie with a knowing glare before vanishing into the hidden reaches above.
Their leader gone, the silent Maenads forced the two through a shifting glow of candles, torches, and electrical lamps. Charybdis had taken Maggie up in her arms. She was now too weak to walk.
The Lucifer Messiah Page 24