Bonds of Darkness

by Joyce Ellen Armond

  With all the candles lit, Vern came back to the circle's center. He put the white candle back onto the altar and faced Kate. He gently guided her arms up, as if she were cradling the sky.

  "Maiden, Mother, Crone, is she."

  He crossed his arms on his chest. “Lover, Son, Sacrifice, is he."

  Kate met his eyes, and saw something more than Vern in them. Something that made her think of Paul. The hair stood up on the back of her neck.

  Vern brought her arms back to her sides again. When he spoke, his voice was husky, intimate. “The God in me invokes the Goddess in you, Kate Scott."

  Without warning, he leaned in and put his lips against hers. Kate drew in a startled breath, forced herself not to pull back. She was suddenly, painfully aware of how naked they both were.

  Gracefully, Vern dropped to one knee. She felt him kiss her right hip. Just as gracefully he stood up again, and put his lips respectfully to her left breast. He kissed her right breast the same way, then sank down again to kiss her left hip. Through the flush of embarrassment, Kate's mind put together the pattern. Vern was kissing a pentagram onto her body.

  He came back to his feet and gently kissed her mouth again. He lingered for a moment, and Kate kissed him back gently, another thank you.

  "So mote it be,” he murmured.

  "Amen,” Kate whispered back.

  She got a lopsided grin in return.

  Vern picked up the small artist's brush in his right hand, balanced the cup of liquid in his left. “Like a serpent coiled under her skin,” he said, “let these symbols lay within.” He dipped the brush into the liquid. Kate jumped a bit when it touched her skin. Whatever the liquid was, it was cold, and the brush tickled. “When power greater than mine does loom, let these magic symbols bloom."

  The brush tickled its way down Kate's shoulder, across her chest and belly, as Vern painted on intricate swirls. The liquid left no visible mark on her skin, just a lingering minty coolness. Vern painted over her hips and down the front of her legs. He painted up the back of her legs and traced intricate designs on either side of her spine. Kate imagined them as the curves and spots of cool, blue butterfly wings. Her entire body felt like iced-over snow in the sun.

  Experimentally, Kate visualized bright, white light. The candles flickered, and the designs on her skin pulsed.

  Vern at her wonderingly. “You're a natural,” he whispered.

  Kate looked over his shoulder. Laurie had come to her feet, leaning on the cane. The sharp angles and planes of her face glowed with a lifetime of yearning to break Paul's curse. Kate saw her lips move, read the words there. So mote it be.

  Kate returned her eyes to Vern.

  "The curse is broken, the spell is lifted,” Vern said, clearly and loudly, “the balance of the universe has now shifted. In service to Goddess and love and light, release the soul of Paul tonight."

  Chapter Twenty-One

  In the drive from Laurie's cottage into Bonaventure's ghost of a business district, Paul's heart hardened into crystal. A hailstorm of recriminations threatened to shatter him: If I had never bought that second cup of coffee ... if I had never let her love me ... If I'd only saved Alina ... He escaped into a frozen sort of disassociation, watching himself through a window covered with frost.

  The plan had walked out of his head, complete in every detail, before he slammed the door on Laurie, Vern, and Kate. His subconscious must have been anticipating the end of rational options, that he would need something desperate.

  The demon whimpered from underneath his heart as he parked in front of an old brick building. The letters B-V-H-S-G were painted in fading gothic sternness above the door, as if the owner couldn't be bothered to pay for the name, Bonaventure Hardware and Sporting Goods, to be painted in its entirety. The town always had been full of kooks. But what was the point, driving over the bypass to do business at the big home improvement superstore? Saving a few bucks didn't matter now, and local businesses were so hungry they would be less likely to toss him out for being bare-footed.

  Inside, Paul went to the sporting goods section, found the hunting department, and finally reached his destination: a glass display case littered with knives.

  "Lookin’ for something?” The man behind the counter was grizzled and etched by time.

  Paul saw his own reflection in the mirrored display: eternally forty, no deep lines or gray hairs to testify to what he'd lived through. “A knife."

  "For what?"

  Paul didn't answer that. Instead, he pointed at a military model, black and sleek and uncompromising. “Can I see that one?"

  The old man unlocked the case, reached in to grope around until his fingers touched the grip. “This one?"

  "Yes."

  It hit the counter with a satisfying thunk. Paul pulled the blade free from its sheath: ten inches of serrated stainless. The romantic side of him would have preferred the style of a Kris blade and Damascus steel. But this one would do the job.

  "Thanks, I'll take it."

  He gave the old man a thin stack of twenties. The old man put the knife in a box, and then in a brown paper sack. “Do you need your receipt?"

  "No, thank you. Have a nice day."

  "You, too."

  Highly doubtful.

  Paul tossed the knife on the passenger seat of the Mercedes, locked it again, then went across the street to the pharmacy. A bell tinkled as he pushed open the door.

  "Good morning,” said the clerk behind the counter. Paul glanced up at her. The eyebrow ring clashed with the neatness of her smock and her chipper tone. “Can I help you find something?"

  Paul scanned the signs hanging above the aisles. “No thanks, I see it."

  He faced the bank of painkiller options, wishing that he could take something more effective, like morphine. But he'd need a clear head. He decided on a box that promised extra-strength fast relief.

  "Come back again soon,” the clerk said as she handed him the flimsy plastic bag.

  Again, highly doubtful.

  With the knife and the painkillers, he got back behind the wheel. He meant to head up the mountain road immediately, but he found himself parked outside Café Foy. He turned off the motor. The key ring jingled softly against the steering column. Paul stared out the windshield at the “For Sale” sign that, in his memory, was never absent from the building for longer than a year. He remembered when it had been built. In its first incarnation it had held an attorney's office on the second floor and a saloon on the first. He could remember being a young man, barely out of his teens, accompanying his mother there for brandy with her merry band of European expatriates and American artists and writers, before the century turned. He'd watched the millennium turn here with the previous owner. He'd been a bit of a flake, that guy, certain that the electricity in the entire world would wink off at midnight. Never could get the coffee right, either.

  A vision flicked through his imagination. He saw himself taking the last cup of good coffee from Dee's friendly hands. Maybe she still had some Café Noisette. He imagined the delightfully bitter taste bursting into his mouth, one last time. He imagined leaning over the counter to give Dee a kiss, to thank her for everything. He could give the breakfast sofa one last long, lingering look, say goodbye with the style and grace that had once defined him, before the curse.

  Instead, he popped open the bottle of painkillers, shook out a handful. He cupped his palm and tossed them all into his mouth at once. He chewed them up, wincing at the stale bitter flavor, and swallowed them dry. It was as much style and grace as he had left.

  From the coffee shop he drove slowly past his house, one last time. It's not really my house. It's my prison. Still, he'd managed to find friends, even love. With a century's worth of days and nights, Sander had found neither.

  Sander was in the basement, preparing for the ritual. If Paul thought that he could force himself down those stairs of his own accord, he might be able to take care of this now. But he wasn't absolutely sure. It never paid
to underestimate Sander. In the heart of his power, maybe Paul wouldn't be able to kill him. Better to stick to the plan.

  He brought the Mercedes to a halt beside the garden. He tapped a button and the window rolled down smoothly. Misty coolness washed across Paul's face. The old red maple his mother planted on his third birthday waved the remainder of its leaves at him. He felt a little less lonely, knowing that the tree had felt the same sun, heard the same birds as he had, all these years. He let his eyes and mind relax. The ugly house shimmered in his imagination, faded into the fog. His mind rebuilt the folly, its stained glass, the lacy fronds of bronze fennel swaying in the night air. The maple had been so much younger, its autumn color stronger, back then.

  That tree was his witness. As a sapling it overheard his mother's ridiculous claim that he would conceive her a grandchild under the bright red leaves. Grown strong and tall, it watched Alina's suicide, Sander's curse, and Paul's shame.

  How strange it felt, knowing that he'd never again see that tree in color.

  He tapped the button, putting a barrier of tinted glass between him and the past. He pulled away, leaving it all behind. He didn't slow as he passed the rutted drive back to Laurie's house, tried not to think of what was going on inside. Pressing relentlessly on the accelerator, he climbed up towards the mountains.

  Through the rain clouds he could sense the position of the sun. Today of all days, his awareness of time ran highest. A look on the Mercedes’ dashboard confirmed that it was not yet noon. More than enough time to make this work.

  At his first opportunity, he traded the two-lane rural road for a narrow gravel lane without an identifying sign. He drove slowly through the pounding rain, searching both sides of the road. During the seventies he'd indulged in a few years of rally racing. What the hell, he'd thought. It wasn't as if he could ever die if the car crashed. And crashed he did. A lot. He'd only given it up when Sander threatened to cut off his cash flow. Too many wondering questions about how he'd survived.

  There.

  Paul stopped the Mercedes, stepped out into the rain. The gravel pricked at the soles of his bare feet as he carefully made his way to the edge of the road.

  Drop off not too steep. Enough trees to catch me.

  The balance he sought was a delicate one. He had to end up hurt enough to trigger the strange bond that linked Sander to him. But he didn't want to hurt himself so badly that he couldn't react when Sander showed up. Today of all days, Sander wouldn't be able to put off the demand of coming to Paul's side, if he sensed Paul was injured. Today of all days, it was a sure bet that Sander would be here within an hour of Paul's first burst of pain.

  Paul returned to the car, shaking cold rain from his hair. He looked from the edge of the road to the knife on the seat beside him. The plan was irrevocably simple. Sander would show up within the hour, desperate to pull Paul out of the wreckage and get him back home before dusk came and the ritual had to be performed. Thinking Paul lost to impotent, suicidal depression, Sander would never see the knife strike that killed him. Sometime later in the week the police would find the Mercedes over the bank, together with Sander's murdered body. Only Laurie, Vern, and Kate would ever know why the murderer was never caught. He pulled his safety belt across his chest and snapped it closed.

  Beneath his heart, the demon vibrated with anger at his choice.

  You should be thrilled. You'll end up with everything.

  The pulse of its rage turned his stomach into a nauseous knot. What would the demon do when it had possession of its life both day and night? Would it be free to go back to whatever place demons lived? It had developed an attachment to Kate. Would it stay around her? Paul imagined what it would be like, trapped inside the demon, watching Kate grieve and then go on, and then grow old, through the demon's colorless sight. It was still a better option than letting her die for him.

  He unsheathed the knife and plunged it into the passenger seat as if he was trying to murder the leather.

  If Kate died because of him, the prison inside the demon would be summer camp compared to the prison of guilt he'd create for himself. If Kate died, cursing him not only with a half-life but with the loss of the only woman he'd ever loved, Paul knew he would break. And Sander would gladly pick up the pieces. It was better this way.

  Putting the Mercedes in reverse, he eased back from his chosen place until he estimated that he'd have the perfect length of road to achieve the necessary speed: not too fast, or the damage would be too great.

  The sky opened up in earnest. Rain sheeted against the windshield. Paul turned the wipers up on high. He didn't want to miss the target.

  He stamped on the accelerator. The tires spun in wet gravel, grabbed, and the Mercedes leaped forward. The trees came up in a blur. The car slid in the mud on the road's edge. The world tilted. Branches slapped against the windshield. The hood caught on a tree trunk. The car jacked sideways, throwing Paul against the door. His head hit the window. Both bone and glass cracked. The airbag popped and whooshed. The car whirled, too far, too fast. Steel crumpled and Paul jerked the other way, the safety belt clawing towards his heart. The passenger door bowed. Glass exploded inward as a thick branch reached inside, peppering Paul's cheek with sudden hot pain. The car thudded to a sudden stop.

  Paul hung from the safety belt, trying to breathe. Blood bubbled through with the air. Not good.

  He could see nothing but airbag and tree branch. He turned his head. His brain sloshed in his skull. The knife was still buried in the leather of the passenger's seat. He groped across the console, grasped the hilt. His fingers were slick with blood.

  Really not good at all.

  He jerked the knife free, and used it to cut away the safety belt. Without its support he sagged dangerously towards the tree branch. His ribs scratched and rubbed in an unnatural and painful way.

  Extra strength fast relief, my ass.

  Using the steering wheel as leverage, he pulled himself upright. His head blossomed into stars and danced in orbit around them. He breathed through the pain, waiting for his vision to clear. The Mercedes was wrapped broadside around a tree trunk. The passenger door was warped, crumpled and impaled by a sapling growing in the larger tree's shadow.

  A tickling twinge ran the length of one of Paul's damaged ribs. Already the curse was working to put him back together again. He looked at the driver's door, and saw through doubled vision the star fanning out through the glass, the blood spattering across the cracks. That's what went wrong. He'd been anticipating a frontal crash and the airbag saving him from a head injury.

  Shit.

  Losing consciousness meant losing it all.

  He pushed at the door. It jarred against the wet ground of the slope and wouldn't open all the way. He used the knife pommel to break the cracked window glass. The sound made him dizzy. He stopped for a dozen deep breaths. Once he got clear of the car he could lay in the rain and let the magic heal his bruised brain, but he had to get clear of the car first. He had to be ready when Sander found him. He'd only have one chance to strike.

  Paul tossed the knife through the broken window. It landed flat against the sopping wet leaves close by the place he hoped to end up himself. He released the steering column, pushing the wheel up and away, trying to find enough room to maneuver. He curled one hand through the glassless window frame and tried to pull himself farther up on the seat. His body flopped like a dead fish.

  He subsided against the car seat, panting after breath and clenching his jaw against the need to vomit. The sound of the rain against the car roof plinked against his brain, each sound a flare of pain, a ticking countdown. Sander was coming, and he was trapped in the Mercedes. Even through the pain, he could appreciate the irony of that.

  Paul grabbed on to the severed remains of the seatbelt hanging above the seat. He tried to brace himself against the car floor, but his ankle exploded in agony.

  How the hell did I break my ankle?

  This wasn't going according to plan.

>   Shit, shit, shit.

  He had to get out of the car.

  Pulling himself up with the seatbelt, Paul swung himself inch by inch, his vision swimming, until he could put his good foot outside the car. He fell back against the seat, gasping. The tree branch poking through the passenger window scratched at the back of his head. He picked up his other thigh in his hands and lifted it until the broken ankle hung uselessly beside the good one. He slithered on his back until his good foot touched mud. Using the seatbelt, he hauled himself forward. The broken ankle gave way, and he fell forward. His knees hit the door and his face fell through the open space where the window glass used to be. A shard still clinging to the frame caught the top of his head. Liquid pain ran across his skull. The world blinked like a camera shutter, open-closed-open-closed. His good foot lost its grip in the mud. Sliding helplessly, his upper body hit the side of the door, bounced, and then with a muscle-straining flop, he met the mud full-body.

  I'm out.

  That one thought kept him on the edge of consciousness. He slid toward oblivion, breathing mud and blood. The rain splattered the back of his skull. Each drop was a little teardrop blade trying push him into the abyss of unconsciousness. The demon reached out of the looming internal darkness to buoy him. Paul came to full awareness lying on his stomach, his fingers scrabbling in the wet leaves and mud, lying halfway under the mangled Mercedes.

  Out of choices, Paul lay in the rain as the magic started re-knitting his body. It passed through his ankle first, and he felt the pain subside.

  The magic apparently planned to work through him feet first, leaving his brain last on the list of parts to be healed. He couldn't catch a break. And he couldn't focus his eyes enough to try to find the sun behind the clouds. Even his special senses were too rattled to use. He didn't know how much time he'd spent crawling free from the wreckage. He didn't know how much time he had left before the sun set.

  A cool shock closed over his ribcage. He felt fractures pulling back together, one rib at a time. He took a deep breath without pain and blood.