Calabi Chronicles: Bloodstone

by Ann Vremont

  CALABI CHRONICLES: BLOODSTONE

  An Ellora’s Cave Publication, September 2004

  Ellora’s Cave Publishing, Inc.

  PO Box 787

  Hudson, OH 44236-0787

  ISBN MS Reader (LIT) ISBN # 1-4199-0033-1

  Other available formats (no ISBNs are assigned):

  Adobe (PDF), Rocketbook (RB), Mobipocket (PRC) & HTML

  CALABI CHRONICLES: BLOODSTONE © 2004 ANN VREMONT

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part without permission.

  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. They are productions of the authors’ imagination and used fictitiously.

  Edited by Mary Moran.

  Cover art by Syneca.

  Calabi Chronicles: Bloodstone

  Ann Vremont

  Author’s Note

  Ceremonial invocations in “Book 3: New Blood” were inspired by the “Song of Amergin” as translated by Robert Graves in his classic study of the divine feminine “The White Goddess; a historical grammar of poetic myth” (Faber & Faber, London (1948)).

  Prologue

  Danu was falling through space and time, racing light and winning. The Calabi, the invisible center of being, was before her, yawning wide, ready to swallow her whole. Her flesh began to tingle and then burn. The heat stripped her of all corporeality, leaving only the white brilliance of her soul. Myr hurtled behind her, picking up speed. The unnecessary layers of his humanity were more easily peeled away as the swirling red center beneath welcomed him home.

  Joy convulsed through Danu and she straightened her spirit like a diver on a high cliff. She felt the heated mass parting, accepting her, transforming her in its search for balance. And then the shrieking began. She tried to stop her ears against the ethereal wailing, but she had no hands or ears anymore. Plugging her ears would have been useless, anyway. The shrieking was a part of her now.

  Myr was there, his essence swimming around and through hers, comforting her in this new environment suddenly grown hostile. Imbalance, the voices cried. A soul too pure, a love divine. Something had to be pushed out or the center would not hold. Myr’s swimming turned to a spiral, the spiral to a whirlpool. Down the funnel, molten creation poured, distilled to a single fat drop a kilometer wide and a hair’s width in depth. As it fell, it folded itself once, twice, a hundred times more. Myr sped after it, his supernatural vision scanning the dimensions, searching for a soul to catch the drop. There! He saw the woman sitting in the crowded room, humming to herself in irritation. An angry buzz, yes, but the voice was pure, as was its owner’s soul. Her attention was fastened on a crate. Her will was set—she would make the crate hers. Without a body to breathe, he blew on the still falling drop. It cooled to a hard, brilliant red. He plucked the woman from where she sat, holding her no more than a heartbeat while he placed the stone in her hands.

  Then, as if she were a toy that had fallen into disfavor, he tore the woman in half, flinging the empty-handed portion back down to the crowded room, leaving her less than herself. The other half he let drop, down through the dimensions. A portal opened at the broken doll’s feet. As the last of her disappeared, Myr erased the opening and drew a circle of fire in the air.

  So it begins…

  Book 1: The Book of Cenn

  Chapter One

  Aideen swore lightly under her breath as she hefted the wooden auction crate from the back of her truck and onto a small hand truck. Some idiot had parked a rental car in the space behind her shop, forcing her to park at the end of the alley. Worse yet, her half-ass assistant, Ricky, wasn’t answering the shop’s phone, leaving her with the sticky choice of leaving the crate unattended a few feet from a busy Dublin street

  or lifting it onto the hand truck herself.

  Oomph! God was it heavy. Her knees popped as she bent down and placed the crate on the steel lip of the dolly, the swift downward motion pushing air between the wooden slats and treating Aideen to the smell of old packing straw and even older leather.

  Books. A small thrill traveled up her spine and reached around to caress her nipples. Old books.

  The books had better be very old indeed, she told herself as she pushed the hand truck up the alley. The crate, its contents unknown, had set her back several thousand at the auction. But Aideen had arrived late, thanks to Ricky and a convoy of Sunday drivers, and all the other items being sold off from Michael Meyrick’s estate were gone.

  Meyrick… A second tingle covered her, pricking her flesh and raising the soft blonde hair on her arms. The faux Wiccans that wound their way into her shop would drool over anything associated with the man and provide her a tidy return on today’s investment. While alive, rumors had clung to the name Michael Meyrick. He was, according to some, an Arch-druid. Most any consumer of the weekly tabloids considered him a psychic extraordinaire who had scried his way to the remains of a millionaire’s missing son and, eventually, the murderer. He was, Aideen acknowledged, a first-rate collector of the arcane.

  Which is why, she thought as she unlocked the back door to her shop, I’m going to kick that little rat bastard in the balls for making me late!

  Ricky heard the jingle of bells as Aideen entered and poked his head around the door to the storeroom. “Hey, back already?” He grinned at Aideen, the movement breaking the harsh point of his goateed chin. Like the mass of hair that hung to his shoulders, the sliver of beard was curly and dyed a perfect Goth black. He tucked a lock of hair behind his ear to reveal a silver earring.

  “That’s new?” Aideen’s voice lost its usual melody and took on the tone of an inquisitor. If that little punk left the shop…

  “Christ, Aideen,” Ricky complained. “How about telling me it looks good, or something?”

  He flashed her one of his trademarked wicked grins and started to step into the storeroom but she held one hand up. Those pale blue eyes and tinted lips might play well with the girls at the pubs and some of the less artful customers who ventured into her shop, but Aideen was immune. “I’ve told you a dozen times not to leave the store. I wasn’t even gone for three hours!”

  Another wave of irritation flooded her as she thought of the frantic race to Meyrick’s spooky little manor in Drogheda after she had been forced to cover a private viewing for clients that Ricky had agreed to show. He had sauntered in an hour late, interrupting her sales pitch and then acting the expert on a Dalyell text. Apparently, as the dangly bit of silver attested, he had already spent the commission that he anticipated Aideen would pay him. He’ll be lucky if he doesn’t leave here with a slip for the job commission.

  “Don’t sweat it, boss.” A silvery set of chimes announced a customer at the front door and Ricky half-turned from Aideen to nod at the newcomer. “Brenna did it in the store while you were gone.”

  “This isn’t a beauty salon,” Aideen said and grabbed a crowbar from her workbench.

  “It was dead quiet—like it always is.” Ricky offered the excuse as he impatiently nodded a second time at the customer before letting the door swing shut behind him and returning to the storefront.

  Aideen glanced at the clock radio on the workbench. It was almost closing time. In half an hour, she could say good-bye to Ricky for the evening. Or forever, she thought and slapped the top of the little clock radio, music pouring from it at her touch.

  As she worked the last nail from the crate’s top, Aideen racked her brain to remember why she had hired the little shit in the first place. The effort evoked a memory of his tight ass in equally tight black jeans and a warm flush heated her thighs, reminding her that she had not been entirely immune in the beginnin
g. Undersexed for far too long, she had immediately dumped the résumé of an Irish history major into the trash when Ricky had turned in his application.

  Pushing back the first layer of packing straw, Aideen banished the image from her mind and pulled out a large lump of moth-eaten black velvet. The heaviness of the cloth washed away the small wave of disappointment that had threatened and replaced it with curiosity. Something was wrapped inside, its weight promising some small icon or stone. Slowly, she pulled back the moldy layers of velvet to uncover a dark red stone slightly smaller than her fist but as heavy as if it were lead. She held the stone up to the storeroom’s light to reveal a small glimmer of transparency. The stone was smooth but misshapen and, as her fingers enveloped it, she found it perfectly fit her closed hand.

  “All locked up,” Ricky said as he swaggered into the storeroom and slid one leg over the stool next to her. Her fingers curled more tightly around the stone and she brought it to her chest. “Now, about that sale this morning…” he started.

  “You mean this afternoon,” she snapped the words at him, her chin in an angled downward tilt so that she could still glare at him while she pushed through the second layer of straw, the hand holding the stone still clutched to her breast. “And if you’re thinking about asking me for a commission, you’d better bite your tongue!”

  He stuck his tongue out at her, a small silver rod bouncing along its tip. “I’d rather have you bite it,” he purred as he tried to run a hand along her sleeve.

  “There’ll be none of that,” Aideen reminded him. “And no commission, either.”

  Ricky’s lips pushed forward in a pout and he pulled at some of the packing straw that Aideen had exposed. “Well, can I at least look through this with you?”

  “It isn’t Christmas and I’m not Santa,” she answered, her body stiffening as he reached for her closed hand.

  “What’s that?”

  “Just go on with you,” she said, pushing him toward the door. Aideen had never had the slightest hint that Ricky stole from her, but the idea of showing the stone to him panicked her.

  His pout grew fuller but he allowed her to lead him to the door. “Maybe Tuesday?” he asked hopefully.

  “Maybe,” she offered, knowing already that she would never let him see the stone.

  “Or later tonight?” The occasional hunger that lit Ricky’s eyes when he looked at her was shining bright.

  “Come back tonight and I promise that I’ll fire you,” Aideen said and pushed him out the door. In one quick sweep, she rotated the two locks and threaded the safety chain on the door before crossing the storeroom and double-checking that he had properly locked the front door.

  Still holding the stone in one hand, she opened the register’s cash drawer, saw how little was there, and decided it wasn’t worth putting her small treasure down to record the cash and checks. She would perform that task before the store opened Tuesday. Back in the storeroom, she held the stone to the light again before removing the last of the straw from the crate.

  A small wrinkle of disappointment furrowed her brow. At the bottom, in a large flat square, was a single mass of bundled black velvet. The smell of leather and aged paper still greeted her, but not in the quantity she had expected as she had hauled the heavy crate, first onto her truck and then into her shop. Still, she thought, the stone growing warm in her hand, it’s not a total loss.

  Snapping a latex glove on one hand, Aideen leaned into the crate to remove the promised book. In a slow tease, she stripped the rotting fabric from the book, small sections of the leather covering revealed with each bit of cloth she peeled away. At last, the cover of the book lay naked before her, black marks burned into the deep red leather. Her eyes, long familiar with the old glyphs, touched the embedded images in a slow caress as her mind raced ahead to reach a translation. The Book of Cenn Cruach.

  Crom, she thought, pulling the god’s name from her memory. A sense of foreboding pricked her scalp as she opened the book to the first page—she had either purchased a very good forgery or a priceless manuscript. A sheaf of paper, of modern commercial quality and folded several times over, slipped from the book and onto the surface of the workbench. Placing the stone on the tabletop, Aideen unfolded the piece of paper. Jumbled sentences mixed with snippets of clarity were scrawled in the folded sections. Diagrams with descriptions of chemical compounds crowded the edges.

  Putting the paper to one side, Aideen grabbed a black smock from a peg by the door and returned to the book, her ungloved hand absently picking the stone back up. Delicately thumbing the first page over, she began reading the second page. Expecting the book itself to be written in Latin and to begin with the long, sonorous invocation common to the priestly texts that served as the primary records of early Irish history, Aideen was surprised to see the glyphs that covered the front continue on, page after page. She let out a deep breath and turned back to the first page of text before fumbling around for a notepad and pen. It was, she told herself as she scribbled the translation to the first line of the second page, going to be a long night.

  Chapter Two

  “Tonight I invoked the Bloodstone. Called to it. Demanded that it recognize me as its master and reveal its location. But another holds sway over its power. I have seen her, a sorceress, robed in black, waves of sunlight rippling over her shoulders and back. Moss green eyes she turns on me as she looks up from her magic tomes, one hand holding the sacred stone.”

  Aideen’s hand began to shake as she finished translating the paragraph. She was some twenty pages into the book, the first sections carefully annotated by some long dead hand with spells and ingredients. She was sure, by now, that the writer truly was long dead. The syntax of an ancient people filled the pages, the flow of the words too beautiful, the knowledge displayed too perfect, for even the most uncommon forger. Glancing up at the sheet of paper, she nodded once. Meyrick, too, had been convinced of the book’s authenticity. His excited, if sometimes inaccurate, translations served as a testimony to his belief that he had made a great discovery.

  And now, the manuscript’s first mention of the Bloodstone. Aideen’s gaze focused on Meyrick’s sheet of notes. “The Bloodstone, sacred heart of Crom, granting power of life and death, of victory over time, to he who wields it.”

  Her fingers, half numb from the death grip with which she held the stone, twitched slightly as she read Meyrick’s words again. Was this the stone? Did he really think in the days leading up to his death—for the notes were dated—that he had, at last, both the stone and the book that would reveal its secrets?

  Aideen returned to translating the text. The ancient writer repeated his attempts to locate the Bloodstone, the duration and danger of his rituals increasing. On the night of the full moon, he went so far as to reveal his true name, Cenn Cruach, in the invocation ceremony. Aideen raised a brow in academic appreciation of the elaborate ritual he described and at the power required to both reveal and conceal one’s true name.

  Aideen glanced at the clock radio; it was near midnight. She flipped to the next page, her vision blurring as she began to write.

  “Again, the Bloodstone mocks my call but I understand the nature of my error. It is she who must be made to answer my call, to feel the force of my powers. I will rest until the new moon, preparing to call this witch to me, to place her and the stone at my command.”

  “Rest.” The word was like a warm salve to Aideen’s cramped hands and complaining shoulders. She blinked, her dry, scratchy eyes filled with tears and she put the pen down to rub them. Tomorrow was Monday, the store’s regular non-business day. She could afford a few hours of sleep and still have the book’s contents translated before the store opened for business on Tuesday. Hell, she thought, sliding the stool back from the table, I can have it translated and have excerpts posted on the website as teasers before the store opens.

  A greedy thrill ran through Aideen as she carefully wrapped clean muslin around the book. With the book safely covered, she re
moved the latex glove and pulled a torn vinyl couch from the storeroom’s only unshelved wall. A rich pattern of wood paneling lay against the wall, the individual pieces running in seemingly haphazard geometric designs. Her fingers expertly slid along the deep grooves of one panel piece until she heard the soft click of a spring lock. Aideen removed the panel to expose a cylindrical wall safe approximately a half meter in diameter. She had a floor safe, as well, but it primarily served as a decoy, holding only a few thousand in currency and medium-range trinkets.

  Packing the safe’s contents to one side, Aideen put the book inside. Sliding the panel back on and repositioning the couch, she pulled two ragged blankets from a storeroom shelf. She placed one over the couch’s shredded vinyl surface and folded the other into a pillow. Then she lay down, pulling the edges of the first blanket over her and drifting into sleep, the stone centered against her chest.

  Even as she slept, the stone and the words that Cenn Cruach had written over a millennium ago crowded Aideen’s thoughts. She had the sense of watching over him as he performed a scrying ritual, his head, crowned in a mass of blue-black curls, bowed as he stared intently into a shallow silver bowl filled with inky black water.

  The same dark hair shadowed his cheeks and chin. Just below, at his neck, his robes parted in a deep V to reveal a chest that was hairless and intricately tattooed. She tried to pick out the symbols that covered him, but in the low light of her sleep, the patterns ran together and traveled inexorably down the smooth skin until her attention reached his navel. From there, a thin line of blue-black hair disappeared into the thick robes.

  Aideen moaned lightly in her sleep and he raised his head, granite blue eyes flecked with black staring up at where she hovered in her dream. His eyes widened in recognition and his lips, flushed a deep red, opened to form a single word translated across time. You.